More than 400 people were killed and 265 injured when a Pakistani airstrike hit a drug rehabilitation centre in Kabul on Monday evening, according to the Afghan interior ministry. Witnesses described horrific scenes of patients burning in their beds or being crushed by collapsing walls.
Haji Fahim, an ambulance driver, said he arrived to find 'everything was burning, people were burning'. Survivor Yousaf Rahim recounted: 'Patients fell from their beds, screaming and running as fire and smoke filled the wards... I stepped over bodies and managed to escape outside.' The compound was reduced to blackened rubble, with bunk beds exposed after roofs collapsed.
The Norwegian Refugee Council confirmed its staff saw 'hundreds of civilians dead and injured'. The UN called for an independent investigation, with human rights spokesperson Thameen Al-Kheetan stating that 'victims and victims’ families are entitled to reparations'.
Pakistan denied deliberately targeting the hospital, claiming it struck 'technical support infrastructure and ammunition storage facilities'. Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said the strikes were 'with precision only at those infrastructures which are being used by Afghan Taliban regime to support its multiple terror proxies'.
The attack is the deadliest in a three-week conflict between the neighbours, which escalated in February when Pakistan launched airstrikes on militant targets in Afghanistan. India condemned the strike, while China has attempted to mediate.
