At least 400 people were killed and 250 were left injured in an airstrike by Pakistan on a rehabilitation hospital in Kabul, intensifying the escalation in the conflict between the two countries.
The strike comes hours after the two sides exchanged fire along the borders, claiming the lives of four people in Afghanistan. Afghanistan’s deputy government spokesperson Hamdullah Fitrat said that the strike hit the rehabilitation hospital at around 9PM, leading to the destruction of larger sections of the 2,000-bed facility.
Pakistan, however, has rejected the claim and said that “precisely targeted military installations and terrorist support infrastructure”
Pakistan’s Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said, “All targeting has been done with precision only at those infrastructures that are being used by the Afghan Taliban regime to support its multiple terror proxies.”
Reuters reports that the witnesses heard three bomb explosions during the time of evening prayers. Out of the three, two of the blasts hit rooms and patient areas.
Flames rapidly engulfed the facility, turning the scene into what felt like “doomsday,” recalled Ahmad, 50, a patient at the center who shared only his first name. “People around me were trapped in the fire—we tried, but we couldn’t rescue everyone,” he said while talking to Reuters.
Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesperson for the Afghan government, condemned the strike, accusing Pakistan of targeting hospitals and other civilian sites to “inflict widespread harm.”
“The Pakistani military regime has once again violated Afghanistan’s airspace and targeted a drug rehabilitation hospital in Kabul, resulting in the death and injury of addicts who were undergoing treatment,” he posted on X.
“We strongly condemn this crime and consider such an act to be against all accepted principles and a crime against humanity,” he further said.
The Afghan Cricket Board on Tuesday condemned the deadly airstrike on a Kabul hospital, describing it as an “act of violence against innocent people.”
“We stand in solidarity with the affected families and our people during this difficult time,” the board said in a statement on X.
India on Tuesday condemned Pakistan following airstrikes on a hospital in Kabul: “This is a cowardly and unconscionable act of violence that has claimed the lives of a large number of civilians in a facility that can by no means be justified as a military target. Pakistan is now trying to dress up a massacre as a military operation,” the statement said.
The fighting between the two in late February after Afghanistan launched cross-border attacks in response to Pakistani airstrikes inside Afghanistan that Kabul said claimed the lives of civilians.
