At least 80 people have died after a twin suicide bomb attack in Kabul which targeted a protest organised by Afghanistan’s Hazara community and was reportedly the deadliest attack in the country since 2001.
More than 230 more were injured in the attack on the Afghan capital on Saturday, during which a third would-be bomber was killed by security forces before detonating a bomb. The attack was claimed by the so-called Islamic State, whose members purport to follow the Sunni tradition of Islam and who are said to hate the minority Hazara community, most of whose members are Shiite Muslims.
A national of day of mourning was declared for the victims of the attack who included members of security forces charged with protecting the protestors.
Rev Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, general secretary of the World Council of Churches, condemned the attack, describing it as “wicked and indiscriminate”. “The deliberate targeting of such a group that was seeking peacefully to draw attention to perceived injustices and exclusion is lamentable and tragic,” he said.
In response to the attack – and that in Germany recently, Roman Catholic Pope Francis, in his weekly address at the Vatican on Sunday, invited people to join him in prayer despite the apparently “insurmountable” difficulties facing the world.
