Bodyguards fired wildly into a crowd after a suicide bombing in northern Afghanistan, killing mostly schoolchildren in the barrage, an internal UN report said.
The report also suggests some people within the UN want legal action taken against the gunmen, who were guarding a group of about a dozen lawmakers from the parliament's economic committee being greeted by hundreds of children on a visit to a sugar factory in Afghanistan's normally peaceful north.
The UN mission in Afghanistan, however, concedes that the report is one of several conflicting views inside the world body and has not been officially endorsed.
PHOTO: AP
The UN Department of Safety and Security report obtained by the press said it was not clear how many died in the suicide bombing and how many died from subsequent gunfire after the Nov. 6 attack in Baghlan Province.
Sixty-one schoolchildren and six lawmakers were among those who were killed.
As many as two-thirds of the 77 people killed and more than 100 wounded were hit by gunfire, the report says, describing the gunmen's actions as "crimes."
"Regardless of what the exact breakdown of numbers may be, the fact remains that a number of armed men deliberately and indiscriminately fired into a crowd of unarmed civilians that posed no threat to them, causing multiple deaths and injuries," the report said.
Though the UN report described the firing as deliberate, some witnesses said that there was a blanket of smoke at the blast site so thick that they couldn't see who was shooting.
Other witnesses could see clearly enough to identify the gunmen as the lawmakers' bodyguards.
Adrian Edwards, the UN's spokesman in Afghanistan, confirmed the internal report's validity, but said it was one of several conflicting views inside world body and that its findings had not been endorsed.
According to Afghan authorities, most of the casualties were the result of the suicide attack.
Aghan Interior Ministry spokesman Zemeri Bashary has said most of the victims were hit by ball bearings from the bomb, and not bullets.
"It has been confirmed that eight of the teachers in charge of this group of schoolchildren suffered multiple gunshot wounds, five of which died," the report said.
The report said that investigations into the incident "are being hampered by restrictions on witnesses and officials" and that despite several arrests, there have not yet been any reports of who is responsible.
One of the doctors who helped treat patients after the bombing -- for which no one has claimed responsibility -- said he was pressured by a government official to hide the truth about how many gunshot victims he attended to.
The doctor refused to identify the official and spoke only on condition he wasn't identified because of fear of reprisals.
Two former Chilean ministers are among four candidates competing this weekend for the presidential nomination of the left ahead of November elections dominated by rising levels of violent crime. More than 15 million voters are eligible to choose today between former minister of labor Jeannette Jara, former minister of the interior Carolina Toha and two members of parliament, Gonzalo Winter and Jaime Mulet, to represent the left against a resurgent right. The primary is open to members of the parties within Chilean President Gabriel Boric’s ruling left-wing coalition and other voters who are not affiliated with specific parties. A recent poll by the
TENSIONS HIGH: For more than half a year, students have organized protests around the country, while the Serbian presaident said they are part of a foreign plot About 140,000 protesters rallied in Belgrade, the largest turnout over the past few months, as student-led demonstrations mount pressure on the populist government to call early elections. The rally was one of the largest in more than half a year student-led actions, which began in November last year after the roof of a train station collapsed in the northern city of Novi Sad, killing 16 people — a tragedy widely blamed on entrenched corruption. On Saturday, a sea of protesters filled Belgrade’s largest square and poured into several surrounding streets. The independent protest monitor Archive of Public Gatherings estimated the
Irish-language rap group Kneecap on Saturday gave an impassioned performance for tens of thousands of fans at the Glastonbury Festival despite criticism by British politicians and a terror charge for one of the trio. Liam Og O hAnnaidh, who performs under the stage name Mo Chara, has been charged under the UK’s Terrorism Act with supporting a proscribed organization for allegedly waving a Hezbollah flag at a concert in London in November last year. The rapper, who was charged under the anglicized version of his name, Liam O’Hanna, is on unconditional bail before a further court hearing in August. “Glastonbury,
The Vatican Museums on Thursday unveiled the last and most important of the restored Raphael Rooms, the spectacularly frescoed reception rooms of the Apostolic Palace that in some ways rival the Sistine Chapel as the peak of high Renaissance artistry. A decade-long project to clean and restore the largest of the four Raphael Rooms uncovered a novel mural painting technique that Renaissance painter and architect Raphael began, but never completed. He used oil paint directly on the wall, and arranged a grid of nails embedded in the walls to hold in place the resin surface onto which he painted. Vatican Museums officials