BAMYAN (SW) – Gunmen have shot several people, including foreign tourists in the central Bamyan province.
The attack took place on Friday evening, May 17, in the “Sar Bazar” area, in front of the “High Land” hotel in central Bamyan.
The Ministry of Interior Affairs of the Islamic Emirate has announced that the incident resulted in the deaths of six individuals, including three Afghans and three foreign nationals.
On Saturday, the government said that the bodies of the Afghans and the Spanish tourists were transported to the capital, Kabul.
“All dead bodies have been shifted to Kabul and are in the forensic department and the wounded are also in Kabul. Both dead and wounded include women,” Ministry of Interior Affairs spokesman Abdul Mateen Qane told the AFP news agency.
“Among the eight wounded, of whom four are foreigners, only one elderly foreign woman is not in a very stable situation.”
According to hospital sources in Bamyan, the wounded were from Norway, Australia, Lithuania and Spain.
Qane said that the fatalities included two Afghan civilians and one the Islamic Emirate member.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Spain has reported that the tourists killed and injured in attack in Bamyan were Spanish nationals, according to Reuters.
Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said in a post on social media that he was “overwhelmed by the news of the murder of Spanish tourists in Afghanistan”, offering his condolences to the families and friends of the victims.
Sanchez also said he was following the situation closely and pledged consular support.
The Islamic Emirate’s security forces have begun efforts to identify and apprehend the perpetrators, resulting in the arrest of seven suspects so far.
No individual or group immediately claimed responsibility for the evening attack.
This is despite that, previously, Abdul Salam Hanafi, Administrative Deputy Prime Minister of the Islamic Emirate, had stated that ensuring nationwide security is among the priorities of the de-facto government.
The European Union condemned the attack in Bamyan in a brief statement on Friday.
“Our thoughts are with the families and loved ones of the victims who lost their lives and those injured in the attack,” it said.
The bodies would likely be brought back to Spain on Sunday, according to Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares, who spoke on Spanish public television TVE.
He said one of the wounded had already undergone surgery in Kabul, according to Al Jazeera news agency.
The mountainous region of Bamyan is Afghanistan’s top tourist destination, home to a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the remains of two giant Buddha statues that the Taliban blew up during their previous rule of Afghanistan in 2001.
