The very long-delayed parliamentary elections in Afghanistan are scheduled for October 20. A voter registration effort started a week ago. Estimates are that 10 to 15 million people will need to be issued new tazkera paper identity cards.
A suicide bomber today struck a registration center in the Dashte Barchi neighborhood of Kabul. The current estimate of the death toll is about 60 people.
At least 57 people waiting at the entrance of an office issuing national identity cards were killed Sunday in a suicide bombing in the Afghan capital, the Public Health Ministry said.
Officials had earlier reported that the attack, which was claimed by the Islamic State militant group, had occurred outside an office for voters’ registration.
The identity cards are key for any Afghan seeking to register to vote in upcoming elections.
The Public health Ministry said the attack also wounded 119 people.
The suicide bomber struck in the Shiite-dominated Dashte Barchi area of Kabul, where the Islamic State has unleashed deadly attacks in recent months.
At least 57 Afghans killed in Kabul suicide bombing, health officials say, Sayed Salahuddin, Washington Post
This was the fourth confirmed attack on the election process since voter registration started last Saturday.
However, two hours later, at about 12 noon, at least five people were killed and six others wounded in Pul-e-Khumri city in Baghlan province after an IED was detonated at a voter registration center – bringing the number of confirmed attacks against the election process to five in only six days.
Death Toll Now At 31 In Kabul Bombing, Tolo News
At the scene of the attack, relatives of the victims tried to go past the police cordon for news of their loved ones. Windows of some of the nearby homes were blown out. Firefighters tried to wash away the blood and human remains from the sidewalks and walls, the drainage canals flooded with bloody water.
Among the victims were children in uniform who were on their way to a nearby school. A picture circulating on social media showed one young child in the morgue still wearing her pink schoolbag, pulled up as a pillow to her hair, which was covered in blood.
“I have carried so many bodies that I cannot even talk,” said Mohammad Karim, 47, who lives nearby. “What is our pain? It is an ongoing pain and misery. They are attacking us and we are being martyred. I carried about 12 bodies. I carried a daughter and mother. The daughter’s brain was smashed out, the mother’s abdomen was cut open.”
Suicide Bomber Kills at Least 52 Afghans in Kabul, Mujib Mashal and Jawad Sukhanyar, New York Times
About the graphic description of the violence in the Times quote above, see my diary This Isn’t Terrorism, from a month ago.