Afghanistan: Many Children Killed

Nearly 60 children were killed in Afghanistan’s deadliest suicide attack since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion toppled the Taliban militant movement from power. Other 96 students were wounded in the blast, the Education Ministry spokesman said Friday, reports AP.

“The attack in the northern province of Baghlan on Tuesday killed at least 75 people. The dead children were ages eight to 18.

“The schoolchildren were lined up to greet a group of lawmakers visiting a sugar factory when a suicide bomber detonated explosives, officials said. Witnesses have said some victims may have been killed or wounded by guards who opened fire after the blast.

“Violence in Afghanistan this year has been the deadliest since the 2001 invasion.”

Children in Afghanistan are increasingly at risk as the country’s security situation deteriorates and the central government’s authority is weakened, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund.

The conflict between Taliban insurgents and multinational forces, the increased use of suicide bombings and attacks on schools, mean that Afghanistan’s children “are probably more at risk now than they have been since 2002,” said Martin Bell, UNICEF UK’s ambassador for humanitarian emergencies told journalists. More here…

Meanwhile let’s hear what Malalai Joya, who became the youngest person to win a seat in the Afghan parliament’s lower house in 2005, the Wolesi Jirga (House of the People), has to say: “The international community will not succeed in Afghanistan, because the U.S. and its allies attacked Afghanistan under the name of liberating the country and the Afghan women, but they fought against the Taliban by supporting another bunch of terrorists.”

As Afghan police scrambled to the scene of a bomb blast Tuesday that killed five lawmakers and dozens of children, Malalai Joya, haunted by death threats and assassination attempts in Afghanistan, sat on the other side of the world, clutching a cup of tea with her eyes cast downward.

She was seated in a cafeteria at the University of Toronto, dressed in a thick black coat and white scarf, far removed from the burqa she’s forced to wear in Afghanistan to protect her identity and her life. More here…