Kabul grenade attack near school wounds dozens of Hazara children

Kabul,UPDATED: Aug 18, 2026 15:36 IST

Multiple children were wounded in a hand grenade attack near a school in the Afghan capital Kabul on Monday afternoon, authorities said. Kabul police spokesman Khalid Zadran said late on Monday that "a number of children" had been hurt and that an investigation was under way.

The attack was condemned on Tuesday by Richard Bennett, the United Nations' special rapporteur for Afghanistan, who described it as a "heinous attack harming numerous children near a school". Afghan media reported that around 50 children were injured in the blast.

The explosion took place in a part of Kabul largely populated by the Hazara ethnic minority. Hazaras, who make up around nine per cent of Afghanistan's population, have long faced attacks and persecution in the country. Most are Shiite Muslims and have repeatedly been targeted in the past by Sunni Muslim radicals such as the Islamic State group. They have also faced discrimination in the Sunni-majority country.

In May 2021, a few months before the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan following the chaotic withdrawal of US-led troops, three bombings at a school in Kabul killed dozens of people. All of them were from the Hazara community, and most were young girls leaving class.

That school, like the one near which Monday's explosion took place, was in Kabul's Dasht-e-Barchi neighbourhood, the main Hazara district in the Afghan capital. In a post on X, Bennett said an independent investigation was essential to bring those responsible to justice. "Once again this mainly Hazara part of Kabul has been targeted. Deplorable!" he wrote, as authorities continued their investigation into the attack that wounded children near the school.

With PTI Inputs

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