Grenade attack at Kabul school injures 52 in Hazara district

A hand grenade attack at a private school in western Kabul on Monday afternoon wounded at least 52 people, most of them children, in an area predominantly inhabited by Afghanistan's Shia Hazara minority, authorities and local health sources said.

The device was thrown into the courtyard of Shame-Hedayat Private School in the Mahdia neighborhood of the Dashte Barchi district at approximately 4:30 p.m. local time, as students were leaving their classrooms, according to a health source in western Kabul. Khalid Zadran, the Taliban government's Interior Ministry spokesperson, confirmed the incident and said security teams had arrived at the scene and an investigation was underway.

A patient list from Esteqlal Hospital showed that three of the four individuals admitted there were children under the age of 13, and at least six additional wounded were taken to Alami Hospital. Both girls and boys were among the injured, health sources said. The total casualty count rose to 52, according to local news reports.

The attack drew swift international condemnation. Richard Bennett, the United Nations special rapporteur for Afghanistan, said on Tuesday that an independent investigation to bring...