Unknown gunmen have attacked a group of United Nations child protection agency workers in northern Afghanistan, injuring one officer, local news agency Pajhwok reported on Monday.
The attack took place on Sunday in the town of Karam Qol, in Faryab province. The UN officers were on a field trip to vaccinate children against poliomyelitis, the report said.
A car carrying the UN staff, including the head of the UNICEF mission in Faryab, Fazil Ahmad, caught fire as a result of the attack and was burnt out. The officers managed to escape, but one of them has been hospitalized with injuries.
No one has claimed responsibility for the attack. Sources in the provincial legislative assembly said it was staged by Taliban militants led by local field commander Kari Ahmad, the report said.
Attacks by Taliban insurgents on aid workers are common in Afghanistan. In late June, four employees of Medair, a Switzerland-based humanitarian non-governmental organization – two foreigners and two Afghans – were kidnapped by Taliban militants in Afghanistan’s easternmost Badakhshan province. They were released last week in a raid by NATO forces.
On Sunday, up to six NATO soldiers were killed in a bomb attack in eastern Afghanistan, the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) confirmed on Monday. There has been no information about the nationalities of the victims.
