Death toll in Kabul suicide bombing now climbs to 57
— An Islamic State suicide bomber carried out an attack at a voter registration center in the capital Kabul on Sunday, killing 57 people and wounding more than 100 others, said officials from the Afghan interior and public health ministries.
Public Health Ministry spokesman Wahid Majro said that among 57 who were killed in the attack, 22 were women and eight are children. Majro added that 119 people were wounded in Sunday’s attack, among them 17 children and 52 women. “The tolls could still rise,” he added.
Gen. Daud Amin, the Kabul police chief, said the suicide bomber targeted
A woman cries at a hospital after losing her son to a suicide attack on a voter registration center in Kabul, Afghanistan.
civilians who were registering for national identification cards.
The large explosion echoed across the city, shattering windows miles away from the attack site and damaging several nearby vehicles. Police blocked all roads to the blast site, with only ambulances allowed in. Local Massoud Hossaini / AP
TV stations broadcast live footage of hundreds of distraught locals gathered at nearby hospitals seeking word about loved ones.
The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement carried by its Aamaq news agency, saying it had targeted Shiite “apostates.”