RASC News Agency: Khalid Sarhadi, the spokesperson for the Taliban’s security command in Ghazni, confirmed that a hand grenade explosion has tragically claimed the lives of three children in the province. The incident occurred on Saturday in the village of Mehrudar, located in the Qarabagh district of Ghazni, when the children were working in the fields harvesting crops.
This incident follows a similar tragedy reported earlier, on October 5, when local Taliban officials in Sar-e Pol province announced that three children had died after a rocket shell exploded. According to a report from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), 88 percent of victims of unexploded ordnance (UXOs) in Afghanistan are children. Half of these incidents occur while children are playing with the remnants of war, which still plague the country after decades of conflict.
OCHA’s report reveals: “Between January and June 2024, a total of 292 civilian casualties were recorded, 88 percent of which were children, resulting from explosive remnants of war.” Just last month, another grenade explosion in Takhar province claimed the life of a child, with another individual succumbing to injuries a week later after being hospitalized. The legacy of two decades of war in Afghanistan has left vast swaths of the country littered with landmines and unexploded ordnance. These devices, left behind from both the Soviet-Afghanistan war and the Taliban insurgency, continue to cause significant civilian casualties.
It is well-documented that during their prior insurgency, the Taliban frequently employed hand grenades and other explosives in night raids against government forces. Bridges, roads, and various other critical infrastructures were often targeted by the group using improvised explosive devices, creating a lingering and deadly threat to civilians, especially children.
