Kabul classroom bombing
The death toll of a suicide bombing on a Kabul classroom has risen to 35, the UN said yesterday, as Shia Hazara women who bore the brunt of the attack staged a defiant protest against the "genocide" of their minority community.
On Friday, a suicide attacker blew himself up in a Kabul study hall as hundreds of pupils were taking tests in preparation for university entrance exams in the city's Dasht-e-Barchi area.
Witnesses have told AFP that the suicide attacker detonated in the women's section of the gender-segregated study hall.
The western neighbourhood is a predominantly Shia Muslim enclave and home to the minority Hazara community -- a historically oppressed group that has been targeted in some of Afghanistan's most brutal attacks in recent years.
No group has claimed responsibility for Friday's attack. But the jihadist Islamic State (IS) group regards Shiites as heretics and has previously claimed attacks in the area targeting girls, schools and mosques.
"The latest casualty figures from the attack number at least 35 fatalities, with an additional 82 wounded," the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said in a statement. More than 20 of the killed were girls and women, it said.
An Afghan interior ministry official told AFP that 25 people were killed and 33 wounded in the attack on the Kaaj Higher Educational Centre.
Meanwhile, dozens of Hazara women yesterday defied a Taliban ban on rallies to protest the latest bloodshed in their community.
Around 50 women chanted, "Stop Hazara genocide, it's not a crime to be a Shia", as they marched past a hospital in Dasht-e-Barchi where several victims of the attack were being treated.
Protesters later gathered in front of the hospital and chanted slogans as dozens of heavily armed Taliban, some carrying rocket-propelled-grenade launchers, kept watch.
Since the hardline Taliban returned to power, women's protests have become risky, with numerous demonstrators detained and rallies broken up by Taliban forces firing shots in the air.
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