Bulldozers dug pits in a cemetery in the Afghan capital on Wednesday as a mass funeral was held for victims of a strike on a drug rehabilitation hospital that Afghanistan blames on Pakistan. The strike, which hit the Omid Addiction Treatment Hospital on Monday, is the deadliest incident in an escalating conflict between the two neighbours, now in its third week.
Afghan officials have put the death toll at 408 people, with 265 wounded, although these figures could not be independently verified. Pakistan rejects the accusation, insisting its strikes targeted military facilities and dismissing Afghan claims of hundreds of casualties as propaganda. Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said Pakistan had “only targeted terrorist infrastructure” and that its strikes had been “very precise”.
The mass funeral was for victims from Kabul province whose bodies had been identified. Victims from elsewhere in Afghanistan were to be transported to their home provinces for burial. Light rain fell as ambulances lined up outside the cemetery, unloading plain wooden caskets. The 2,000-bed hospital, renamed and expanded a year ago to combat drug addiction, was hit near Kabul’s international airport, adjacent to a former NATO military base.
Afghan government spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid condemned the strike, accusing Pakistan of “targeting hospitals and civilian sites to perpetrate horrors”. He said those killed were “innocent civilians and addicts”. The conflict, which began in late February, has seen repeated cross-border clashes and airstrikes despite international calls for a ceasefire. Pakistan accuses Afghanistan of harbouring militants, which Kabul denies.
