2006-04-11
Six School Children Killed in a Rocket Attack
At least six children were killed and another 14 injured after a rocket hit their school in eastern Kunar province, officials said on Tuesday.
The rocket landed in the yard of the Salabagh primary school in the provincial capital of Asadabad, close to a US-led coalition base, said Zahidullah Zahid. “The students were studying in the yard when the rocket landed, killing six innocent girls and boys,” Zahid explained.
Tom Koenigs, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s Special Representative for Afghanistan, condemned the attack and called on the militants to end violence against the children of the war-ravaged country.
In December, a suspected Taliban gunman dragged a teacher from his classroom and shot him dead at the gates of his school after he ignored warnings to stop teaching boys and girls in a mixed class in Helmand province.
In a separate attack, also in December, gunmen shot and killed an 18-year-old male student and a guard at another school in Helmand. While in Zabul province, also in the south, a teacher was dragged from his home and beheaded in February.
Insecurity remains a key issue in post-Taliban Afghanistan. Despite the deployment of thousands of US and NATO forces, around 1,700 people died in conflict-related violence in 2005 alone. Ninety-one US troops died in combat or as a result of accidents in 2005 - more than double the number for 2004.
