DM Monitoring
KABUL: A total of 20 civilians including women and children have been killed in violent incidents in Afghanistan over the past 24 hours, officials said.
In the latest waves of violence, a roadside bomb blast in the western Ghor province killed four persons from the same family, provincial government spokesman Zalmay Karimi said.
“Four members of a family including father, mother and their two children were riding a motorbike towards their home in Kharak area but unfortunately a mine planted by militants struck the motorbike killing all the four on the spot,” Karimi told Xinhua.
It was the second blast of its kind since Wednesday that claimed the lives of civilians in the troubled Ghor province.
In another incident, an explosive device went off outside Ghor’s provincial capital Firoz Koah on Wednesday night killing three civilians and injuring three others, Karimi said.
The province also witnessed execution of civilian passengers on Thursday as unidentified armed militants intercepted a car and gunned down three passengers after checking the commuters, the official confirmed with media.
Meanwhile, a roadside bomb struck a civilian van, leaving 10 people including women and children dead and injuring two others outside the southern Helmand’s provincial capital Lashkar Gah on Thursday morning, the police confirmed.
Civilians often bear the brunt of war in Afghanistan as the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) documented 573 killed and 1,210 injured in the first three months of this year, the UN office said in a report released last month.
Afghanistan’s Human Rights Commission confirmed in a recent report that more than 220 civilians have been killed and over 500 others injured in the country during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.
Afghanistan’s Minister for Hajj and Religious Affairs Aminuddin Muzafari has denounced the ongoing war in the country as illegitimate and called upon the Taliban militants to respect Afghans’ demand and give up fighting.
A Taliban purported spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid has rejected the group’s involvement in attacking the civilians.
