Afghanistan mourns 105 students killed in terror attacks

KABUL, Afghanistan

Afghanistan will observe a national day of mourning on Tuesday over the death of 105 students in recent terrorist attacks in the capital Kabul and the eastern Logar province.

The national flag also flew at half-mast at all public offices in the country and diplomatic missions around the world on Monday as the death toll from Saturday’s bomb attack on a girls’ school in Kabul surged to 80.

President Ashraf Ghani announced the day of mourning in a televised address, saying that special prayers would be held across the country and at all Afghan missions abroad.

Violence has escalated in Afghanistan as American troops have started leaving after US President Joe Biden announced plans for a complete withdrawal by this September.

The government blamed the Taliban for the back-to-back blasts at the school in Kabul’s Dasht-e-Barchi neighborhood, an area with a large population of the minority Shia Hazara community that has been targeted in multiple such attacks over the years.

The Taliban denied involvement and also announced a three-day cease-fire early on Monday for the Muslim Eid al-Fitr holiday later this week.

The attack in Logar on April 30 was a car bombing that targeted a hostel where students were preparing for a university entrance test.

The Taliban did not claim or deny responsibility for the blast that killed 25 students.

Strongly condemning the attacks, the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) called on the UN to investigate the targeted attacks against civilians in the war-weary country.

The probe should focus on “identification of the perpetrators and collection of evidence,” the AIHRC said.