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Death toll reaches 62 at mosque bomb in Afghanistan - UPDATED

18 October 2019 21:29 (UTC +04:00)

Dozens of worshippers were gathered inside a mosque in eastern Afghanistan to offer Friday prayers when a mortar round fired by insurgents blasted through the roof, causing it to collapse and killing at least 62 people, provincial officials said on Friday, APA reports citing Daily Sabah

Attahullah Khogyani, spokesman for the provincial governor, said 36 others were wounded in the attack in the Haskamena district. He says there were children among the dead and wounded.

Khogyani also said the victims included children and that the number of casualties could still rise.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but both the Taliban and Daesh are active in eastern Afghanistan, especially Nangarhar province.

In western Herat province, six civilians including four children were killed when their vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb, said Jelani Farhad, spokesman for the provincial governor.

Farhad added that five other civilians were wounded in Thursday afternoon's attack in the Zawal district.

The violence comes a day after a United Nations report said that Afghan civilians are dying in record numbers in the country's increasingly brutal war, noting that more civilians died in July than in any previous one-month period since the U.N. began keeping statistics.