5 children ‘playing with unexploded mortar shell’ killed in Afghanistan

Series of similar mortar explosions have killed children in Afghanistan

File A burqa-clad woman along with children visit the Gol Ghandi Park in Charikar of Parwan province (AFP via Getty Images)

At least five children were killed and two others were injured when an unexploded mortar shell blew up in Afghanistan‘s southern Helmand province on Friday, a Taliban official said.

The children appeared to have discovered the shell and were playing with it when it exploded in the Marja district, said Abdul Bari Rashid Helmandi of Helmand’s Information and Culture Department.

The children were between the ages of three and twelve years and included a girl among the fatalities, he said.

Two other children who were left injured were taken to the district hospital for treatment, said the former local council member named Ahmadullah, who like many Afghans goes by one name.

Pictures shared by the country’s Bakhtar news agency showed small children in hospital beds covered in bandages and injuries.

This was another deadly incident that killed children in a series of similar explosions that have occurred in one of the most mine-contaminated countries in the world following its history of decades of war and conflict.

The children remain worst affected as they often collect scrap metal to sell to support their families and are killed or maimed when they come across unexploded ordinance.

In one of the most deadly blasts, nine children were killed in January this year in the district of Lalopar, in eastern Nagarhar province when a mortar shell exploded.

In March, two people were killed and three were injured after a mortar shell exploded in eastern Paktia province on Friday.

This was another grim picture emerging from the South Asian country which is reeling under what UN agency for humanitarian affairs called the “unparalleled” crisis during to an alarming food shortage.

Around 95 per cent of people do not have enough to eat, nine million are at risk of famine and one million severely malnourished children, UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)

It added that more than 24.4 million people require urgent humanitarian assistance to survive, which has been sparked by years of conflict and recurring drought.

“Food security levels have plunged at an alarming rate, leaving half the population facing acute hunger, including nine million in a state of emergency food insecurity – the highest number in the world,” it said.

“Moreover, malnutrition is on the rise, and livelihoods have been destroyed.”

So much so that the “people are already selling their children and their body parts, in order to feed their families” Secretary-General António Guterres said on Thursday.

The country's already worsening economic situation deepened after the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan on 15 August in 2021 amid the hasty withdrawal of US-led foreign forces.

US president Joe Biden issued an executive order by diverting half of the $7bn in frozen Afghan funds held in the US to victims of the September 11 attacks and possibly half for humanitarian aid.

Meanwhile, the human rights situation is also deteriorating in the country with the Taliban government did not allow girls to return to high schools when they were set to open nationwide after months of restrictions.

The Islamic hardliners also barred dozens of women from boarding flights in absence of male guardians.