KANDAHAR: A bomb targeting government employees went off at a wedding ceremony in the Afghanistan’s southern province of Helmand, killing four girls, officials said on Thursday.
The officials said that an improvised explosive device (IED) was detonated leaving the children, aged between 7 and 12, dead as they collected water from a river during celebrations in Helmand.
“The children were at the wedding party and this morning they went to collect water when the IED exploded on a footpath,” provincial administration spokesman Omar Zwak said.
“The Taliban may have planted the bomb to hit local government staffs who were at the wedding, but it killed innocent children.” Senior police official Mohammad Ismail Hotak confirmed the incident outside the provincial capital Lashkar Gah and gave a similar account.
“Four young girls were killed. The body of one of them has been totally shattered,” he said.
