KANDAHAR CITY (SW): A passenger taxi hit an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) in Kandahar on Monday leaving four members of a single family dead.
Haji Moalem, governor for Khakrez district, told Salam Watandar the incident took place in the Shah Agha area early in the morning. He said such landmines are usually planted by the Taliban that often target civilians. No group has so far taken responsibility for this attack.
Earlier in May, at least ten civilians got killed and six more wounded following a landmine blast in Herat. This came exactly a week after a landmine blast claimed 11 lives of a family in south eastern Logar province
In February this year, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said in its annual report that the civilians again bore the brunt of violence in Afghanistan in 2016 that saw a large number of children among the 3,498 dead. The report documented 11,418 conflict-related civilian casualties, including 3,498 people killed and 7,920 injured in 2016. Of these, 3,512 were children — 923 dead and 2,589 injured, up by 24 percent from the previous highest-ever recorded figure.
The conflict-related violence exacted a heavy toll on in the country, with an overall deterioration in civilian protection and the highest-total civilian casualties recorded since 2009, when the UN mission began systematic documentation of casualties, it said
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