United Nations:
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has expressed outrage at the July 1 attack, claimed by Taliban, in a civilian-populated area of Kabul, appealing to all parties to the conflict in Afghanistan to uphold their obligations to protect civilians.
The Taliban detonated a powerful car bomb in an area of Afghanistan’s capital housing military and government buildings, killing at least 16 people.
The bomb went off during the morning rush hour in Kabul when the streets were filled with people, injuring 105 people, including 51 children and five women. The explosives also damaged schools and other infrastructure in the immediate vicinity.
“The Secretary-General is outraged and deeply saddened by the Taliban-claimed complex attack that took place on 1 July in a civilian-populated area of Kabul,” a statement issued by the Secretary General’s spokesman said.
Guterres “reiterates that international humanitarian law explicitly prohibits indiscriminate attacks and attacks directed against civilians, and appeals to all parties to the conflict in Afghanistan to uphold their obligations to protect civilians”.
The UN Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, Virginia Gamba, also condemned the horrific attack. Several schools have reportedly been damaged by the explosions.
“I am appalled by this attack in which boys and girls have been killed and maimed, a result of blatant disregard for basic rules of war such as the protection of children and safe heavens in the conduct of hostilities. Children should be entitled to safety at all time, especially when at school or at home,” she said.
She expressed grave concerns at the continuous violence perpetrated by the Taliban and other parties to conflict in Afghanistan and called for immediate measures to be taken to ensure the safety and protection of children, the most vulnerable in times of war.
Gambia called on the Afghan authorities to swiftly prosecute the perpetrators of this attack under national and international laws.
Describing the attack as “horrific”, Henrietta Fore, Executive Director of the UN Children’s Fund, UNICEF, said, “The deadly blast…did not spare children during one of their most mundane and important routines — being at school.”
Fore said schools should be havens of peace, and the violence in or around them is never acceptable. The security situation in Afghanistan, which was “already dire”, has recently deteriorated, and the “violence, which keeps blighting futures and claiming young lives, must end”, she said.
Generations of Afghan children, Fore said, have known nothing but war. “It is more than time that they enjoyed a life free of violence and conflict.”
The UN Mission in Afghanistan, UNAMA, tweeted that the UN was “appalled” by the bomb attack, and “demands an end to indiscriminate blasts in civilian areas”.
The attack comes just days after UNICEF pointed out that children in conflict zones such as Afghanistan are being denied a safe place to learn, during the promotion of the ‘Safe Schools Declaration’, a political commitment to better protect students, teachers, schools and universities during war and to allow young people to continue their education.
