Two children have been killed and more than a dozen others injured in a blast at a seminary in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, in an incident that has deepened anxiety in a region already struggling with insecurity.
The device detonated while the children were playing with it, killing two instantly and injuring 16 others. Officials said explosives were planted at the building in Ayaz Kot, leaving more than 600 children without a place to study. Police said the explosion occurred in North Waziristan’s Mir Ali area at about 2pm after students brought a mortar shell into Madressah Shams-ul-Quran, having mistaken it for a toy they found outside, Dawn reported.
Local officials said security forces had earlier warned residents that an unexploded mortar had landed in the area and urged civilians to avoid it. One elder said the school had been “the heart of our community”, describing its loss as an attack on children’s hopes, Express Tribune reported. Several of the wounded were later transferred to hospitals in Bannu and nearby districts. However, the warning did not reach everyone, and the children unknowingly carried the device into the seminary, as per Dawn. The incident came amid growing concern about public safety in North Waziristan, which on the same day saw a separate overnight attack that destroyed a government primary school in Mir Ali. Parents and elders condemned the destruction as a deliberate assault on the community’s future.