UN raises Kabul suicide bombing death toll to 35

Kabul: The death toll of a suicide bombing on a Kabul classroom has risen to 35, the UN said on Saturday, as Hazara women who bore the brunt of the atack 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.

The western neighbourhood is a predominantly Shiite Muslim enclave and home to the minority Hazara community — a historically oppressed group that has been targeted in some of Afghanistan’s most brutal atacks in recent years.

“The latest casualty figures from the atack 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.

The UN mission’s casualty figure is higher than the toll Kabul authorities have given.

An interior ministry official told reporters anonymously on Saturday that 25 people were killed and 33 wounded in the atack on the Kaaj Higher Educational Centre — updating an earlier toll of 20 killed and 27 wounded.

Since returning to power last August, security has been a sensitive topic for the Taliban and they have oten been keen to downplay atacks challenging their regime. Meanwhile, on Saturday dozens of Hazara women 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 Shiite,” as they marched past a hospital in Dasht-e-barchi where several victims of the atack were being treated.

Dressed in black hijabs and headscarves, the protesters carried banners that read: “Stop killing Hazaras,” a correspondent reported.

Witnesses have told reporters that the suicide attacker detonated in the women’s section of the gender-segregated study hall.

“Yesterday’s atack was against the Hazaras and Hazara girls,” protester Farzana Ahmadi, 19, said.

“We demand a stop to this genocide. We staged the protest to demand our rights.”

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 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.

No group has claimed responsibility for Friday’s atack.