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A series of strong aftershocks from a deadly earthquake that hit eastern Afghanistan at the weekend injured at least another 10 people and caused further damage, Taliban authorities said on Friday.Five shallow aftershocks, the strongest measuring at magnitude 5.6, were recorded by the US Geological Survey (USGS) on Thursday night and Friday morning, with some rattling Kabul and neighbouring Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad.National disaster authority spokesman Mohammad Hammad told AFP that 10 people were injured across eight provinces jolted by the aftershocks, including the hardest hit Kunar, Nangarhar and Laghman, adding to the more than 3,700 already injured in the initial quake.Another 5.2-magnitude quake struck in the same area on Friday evening, according to the USGS.More than 2,200 people were killed after the magnitude-6.0 earthquake hit eastern Afghanistan just before midnight on Sunday, making it the deadliest quake to hit the country in decades. In Nuristan province, north of Kunar, resident Enamullah Safi said he and others ran out of their homes when the aftershocks hit overnight. “Everyone was afraid. We are still afraid and have not returned to our homes,” the 25-year-old cook told AFP, saying he huddled under a blanket with several other people to keep warm in the cold, mountain night. Some houses were damaged or destroyed, he said, adding that they have received little assistance, as aid is concentrated in the worst-hit zones.Access has been stymied by already poor roads blocked by landslides and rockfall that continued as the area was convulsed by aftershocks. The disaster comes as Afghanistan is already facing multiple crises after decades of conflict, contending with endemic poverty, severe drought and the influx of millions of Afghans forced back to the country by neighbours Pakistan and Iran since the Taliban’s 2021 takeover. strs-sw/ecl/fox/des/st

Clutching their hungry babies, a group of mothers mix a semolina dish under the guidance of a teacher, an attempt to curb malnutrition which affects nearly one in two children in Pakistan’s south.Despite Sindh province being home to the mega port city of Karachi, the financial centre of the country that sprawls along the Arabian coastline, children in rural areas just a few hours away face stark levels of wasting and stunting. In the arid village of Sujawal, lethargic children with prominent bones wilt in the searing heat as social workers educate mothers on nutrient-rich ingredients and dispel myths around food. “Before, we only gave our children potatoes because they were always available at home,” said Shahnaz, 25, who has radically changed the diet of her six children, weak and frequently sick, after a year of classes.Now, convinced that children should eat a varied diet, she has introduced affordable ingredients such as lentils and semolina into her cooking, lifting her daughter out of malnutrition. In impoverished rural Sindh province, 48 percent of children under five suffer from malnutrition and 20 percent from its most severe form, wasting, according to the latest national survey on the issue conducted in 2018. In this class, Azma, a social worker, shows mothers how to cook with semolina — easily available in the market. “Semolina is cheap — for 50 rupees it can last a week if you’re feeding one to two spoonfuls daily to a six-month-old child,” she explained to AFP. In Sindh, a province of 55 million people where contraception remains taboo and large families are the norm, 3,500 mothers have benefited from cooking classes developed by UNICEF. Like many mothers in the area, Kulsoom, 23 and pregnant with her sixth child, all born prematurely and underweight, once only fed her children pieces of fried flatbread.”One of my children died, and my youngest is extremely weak, so I was advised to take these classes,” said Kulsoom, who goes by only one name, like most women in her district. – No spices -Parents are recommended to feed babies solid foods from about six months old, but in rural Sindh this often means adult leftovers, too spicy for young stomachs.”The main problem is the lack of dietary diversity,” says Mazhar Iqbal, a nutritionist for UNICEF.In Pakistan, 38 percent of children eat only two or fewer of the eight food categories recommended by UNICEF.Meat is saved for special occasions, yet inexpensive protein alternatives exist such as chicken offal, boiled bones, lentils and beans. As for fruit and vegetables, they are usually fried, losing their nutrients. Bakhtawar Kareem joined the programme after her child died of anaemia. “I have no money. Sometimes we eat, sometimes we don’t,” she lamented, scanning the swollen belly of her one-year-old daughter, who has only sparse clumps of hair. Like 72 percent of children in the village, her daughter has stunting, well above the average rate in Pakistan of 42 percent — one of the highest in the world. Stunting is most closely associated with brain development and physical growth, and can have long-term physical and mental impacts. Vulnerable to a lack of clean water and sanitation which contributes to malnutrition, children often also suffer from dengue fever or malaria, from vomiting, diarrhoea, or difficulty urinating, and have abnormally swollen bellies. – Women eat leftovers -But the vicious cycle of malnutrition begins with the mothers. “With early marriages and repeated pregnancies, more than 45 percent of women in Sindh are anaemic,” said the nutritionist. “This increases the risk of having low birth weight babies, who are more likely to suffer from malnutrition.” In Sujawal, where only a quarter of the population can read and write, myths about food also deprive women of vital nutrients. Farrah Naz, the head of the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition in Pakistan, regularly has to repeat that eggs and dried fruits do not cause women to bleed more during their periods. Cultural norms around women serving meals to men first and eating the leftovers — despite the physical work they carry out in the fields — also contributes to poor health. “And when food runs out, it’s their rations that are cut first.” 

For more than a century, the fate of the dazzling Darya-e-Noor diamond has been sealed inside a bank vault — a mystery that haunts Khawaja Naim Murad, descendant of the former princes, or Nawabs, of Dhaka.Locked away in 1908, were the family’s heirlooms lost during the violence at the end of British rule in 1947?Did they survive Bangladesh’s war of independence in 1971 and the string of coups that followed, or are they still safe, dusty but untouched?Many suspect the jewels are long gone, and officials at the state-run bank hesitate to simply open the vault, fearing they’d carry the cost if it is empty.But the cash-strapped South Asian government have now ordered a committee unseal the vault — and Murad clings to hope.”This is not a fairytale,” said Murad, 55, recounting a story passed down from his father about the giant diamond dubbed the “River of Light”, the centrepiece rock of glittering armband.”The diamond was rectangular in shape and surrounded by more than half a dozen smaller diamonds,” Murad told AFP.It was part of a trove of 108 treasures. According to original court documents, they include a gold-and-silver sword encrusted with diamonds, a bejewelled fez with cascading pearls, and a fabulous star brooch once owned by a French empress.- History and myth -The nawab’s riverside pink palace of Ahsan Manzil is now a government museum.Murad, a former popular film star, lives in a sprawling villa in a wealthy Dhaka suburb.He flourished a sheaf of documents, including a family book with detailed paintings of the treasures.”It is one of the most famous diamonds in the world, and its history is closely associated with that of the Koh-i-Noor,” the book reports, referring to the shining centrepiece of Britain’s crown jewels — a gem also claimed by Afghanistan, India, Iran and Pakistan.”It is absolutely perfect in lustre.”Another diamond of the same name, the pink-hued Daria-i-Noor, is in Tehran as part of Iran’s former royal jewels.Murad maintains that the family’s diamond, too, was once owned by Persia’s shahs, then worn by Sikh warrior-leader Ranjit Singh in 19th-century Punjab. It was later seized by the British and eventually acquired by his ancestors.But fortunes shifted. In 1908, the then-nawab — Murad’s great-grandfather — faced financial trouble.Sir Salimullah Bahadur borrowed from British colonial powers — mortgaging his vast Dhaka estates and placing the treasures in a vault as collateral.That was their last confirmed sighting. Since then, myth and history merge.Murad believes his uncle saw the jewels in the bank in the 1980s, but bank officials say they do not know if the vault has ever been opened.Chairman of the Bangladesh’s Land Reforms Board, AJM Salahuddin Nagri, says the government body inherited custody of the trove, held in a state-owned bank.”But I haven’t seen any of the jewels yet,” he told AFP.- ‘Vault is sealed’ -The 1908 court papers did not specify the diamond’s carat weight but valued it at 500,000 rupees — part of a hoard worth 1.8 million rupees.By today’s conversion, that equals roughly $13 million, though experts say the market value of such rare and large jewels has since sometimes soared many times higher.Today’s guardian, Shawkat Ali Khan, managing director of Sonali Bank, said the safe remains shut.”The vault is sealed,” Khan said. “Many years back, an inspection team came to check on the jewels, but they never really opened it — they just opened the gate that held the vault.”He is keen for the vault to be opened at last, though no date yet has been given.”I am excited,” he said with a brief smile.The family hope to discover if any of the century-old debt remains, and whether they could reclaim the jewels.Murad dreams of diamonds, but says his real wish is to simply see the treasure for himself.”We believe that if anyone dies in debt, his soul never finds peace,” he said.

“RESET SYSTEM” reads graffiti above an intersection in the Javanese city of Yogyakarta, painted hastily in vibrant green and pink after deadly protests swept Indonesia last week.Pink and green have quickly come to symbolise a solidarity movement after violent protests, sparked by discontent over economic inequality and lavish perks for lawmakers, rocked Southeast Asia’s biggest economy.In the capital Jakarta, office worker Dila paused at her desk to apply a bright green and pink filter to her Instagram and WhatsApp profile pictures.”What we need now is solidarity among each other… because there’s still a long way to go,” said 28-year-old Dila, who declined to give her full name.Pink represents the colour of the hijab worn by a woman who stood outside the House of Representatives to protest, waving the national flag in defiance of police guarding the building.Green has come to symbolise 21-year-old delivery driver Affan Kurniawan, who was run over by an armoured paramilitary police vehicle and whose death stoked anger among workers who face big pay deductions and longer working hours.Affan was on a food delivery order and was wearing a bright green jacket, common among ride-hailing drivers across Indonesia, when he was killed last Thursday.”There must be reform in our police force, impunity cannot be allowed to continue,” Dila said.”This  is not only about the current demonstration, but the accumulation of cases from the past.”The protests marked the worst unrest since President Prabowo Subianto, an ex-general and once a son-in-law of the military dictator Suharto, took power less than a year ago.- ‘Brave Pink, Hero Green’ -The “Brave Pink, Hero Green” movement that sprang from the protests has forced Prabowo and parliament to make U-turns on the perks that angered Indonesians across the sprawling archipelago.Those perks included overseas travel and housing allowances for MPs that were nearly 10 times the minimum wage in Jakarta.Indonesia recorded a surge in growth in the second quarter of the year on the back of manufacturing and export demand.Yet that is not being felt in the wallets of everyday Indonesians, who see a corrupt political class enriching itself while economic disparity widens.”It’s the whole corrupt system, there is too big a distance between people in the government, the parliament, and us as the people they have to serve,” office worker Dila told AFP.She, like many others, has adopted the “brave pink hero green movement” as a way to spread the word online among those who may not have been aware or who did not join the protests.Some design and draw their own images, while others have created a free website image generator so that people can modify their own pictures.”Perhaps this is one of the ways to remind people that this issue deserves our attention,” Dila said.- ‘We are not the problem’ -A state-affiliated rights group said on Wednesday that at least 10 people were killed and hundreds injured during the protests, while another NGO has said at least 20 people were missing.The protests have eased and Prabowo, who had called for calm, left late on Tuesday to attend a massive military parade in Beijing after earlier delaying the trip.Prabowo had stayed behind to deal with the demonstrations after saying that some of the protesters’ actions were “leaning towards treason and terrorism”.Mutiara Ika Pratiwi, from the women’s rights group Perempuan Mahardhika, said she was “devastated” that Prabowo had described the protests in such a way.”The people are not the problem. We have the right to protest because our voice has never been heard,” she told AFP.”This is beyond resentment, this is compassion that evolves and becomes the symbol of resistance,” Pratiwi said of the pink-and-green movement.- ‘Crucial pillar’ -Muhammad Dwiki Mahendra, 27, joined the movement from Germany, where he is undertaking a Master’s degree in peace and conflict studies.”I believe this is a crucial pillar in countering the narrative often used by the government, which views community movements as being manipulated by foreign forces,” he told AFP.He said the government’s public communications had been poor and had “not answered or addressed the existing issues at all”.Only then would change be possible, say adherents of the pink-and-green movement.”I can feel that we are not alone, when I see others use the same filter I feel joyful,” said Sphatika Winursita, a 25-year-old from Banten province west of Jakarta who changed her Instagram profile on Monday.”I’m proud that we have each other to fight for our dream.”

Rescue teams struggled Wednesday to reach survivors days after a powerful earthquake in eastern Afghanistan left more than 1,400 people dead, as access to remote areas remained obstructed.A magnitude-6.0 shallow earthquake hit the mountainous region bordering Pakistan late Sunday, collapsing mud-brick homes on families as they slept.Fearful of the near-constant aftershocks, people huddled in the open or struggled to unearth those trapped under the heaps of flattened buildings.The earthquake killed at least 1,469 people and injured more than 3,700, according to the latest toll from Taliban authorities, making it one of the deadliest in decades to hit the impoverished country.UN refugee chief Filippo Grandi said on X that the quake had “affected more than 500,000 people” in eastern Afghanistan. The vast majority of the casualties were in Kunar province, with a dozen dead and hundreds hurt in nearby Nangarhar and Laghman provinces.Access remained difficult, as aftershocks caused rockfall, stymying access to already isolated villages and keeping families outdoors for fear of the remains of damaged homes collapsing on them.- ‘Everyone is afraid’ -“Everyone is afraid and there are many aftershocks,” Awrangzeeb Noori, 35, told AFP from the village of Dara-i-Nur in Nangarhar province. “We spend all day and night in the field without shelter.”The non-governmental group Save the Children said one of its aid teams “had to walk for 20 kilometres (12 miles) to reach villages cut off by rock falls, carrying medical equipment on their backs with the help of community members”.The World Health Organization said Wednesday it was scaling up its emergency response to address the “immense” needs and that it required more resources in order to “prevent further losses”.WHO has appealed for $4 million to deliver lifesaving health interventions and expand mobile health services and supply distribution.”Every hour counts,” WHO emergency team lead in Afghanistan Jamshed Tanoli said in a statement. “Hospitals are struggling, families are grieving and survivors have lost everything.”The Taliban government’s deputy spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat told AFP that areas which had taken days to reach had been finally accessed.”We cannot determine the date for finishing the operation in all areas as the area is very mountainous and it is very difficult to reach every area.”ActionAid noted that women and girls were particularly vulnerable in emergencies as they face steep restrictions under the Taliban authorities.Residents of Jalalabad, the nearest city to the epicentre, donated money and goods including blankets. “I am a simple labourer and I came here to help the earthquake victims because I felt very sad for them,” said resident Mohammad Rahman. – Deepening crisis -Around 85 percent of the Afghan population lives on less than one dollar per day, according to the United Nations.After decades of conflict, Afghanistan faces endemic poverty, severe drought and the influx of millions of Afghans forced back to the country by neighbours Pakistan and Iran in the years since the Taliban takeover.Even as the country reeled from its latest disaster, Pakistan began a new push to expel Afghans, with more than 6,300 people crossing the Torkham border point in Nangarhar province Tuesday.”Given the circumstances, I appeal to the (Pakistan government) to pause the implementation of the Illegal Foreigners Repatriation Plan,” UNHCR chief Grandi said.The Norwegian Refugee Council also cautioned that “forcing Afghans to return will only deepen the crisis”.It is the third major earthquake since the Taliban authorities took power in 2021, but there are even fewer resources for the cash-strapped government’s response after the United States slashed assistance to the country when President Donald Trump took office in January.Even before the earthquake, the United Nations estimated it had obtained less than a third of the funding required for operations countrywide.In two days, the Taliban government’s defence ministry said it organised 155 helicopter flights to evacuate around 2,000 injured and their relatives to regional hospitals.Fitrat said a camp had been set up in Khas Kunar district to coordinate emergency aid, while two other sites were opened near the epicentre “to oversee the transfer of the injured, the burial of the dead, and the rescue of survivors”.Afghanistan is frequently hit by earthquakes, with the country still recovering from previous disasters.Western Herat province was devastated in October 2023 by a 6.3-magnitude earthquake, which killed more than 1,500 people and damaged or destroyed more than 63,000 homes.

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility Wednesday for a suicide bombing that authorities said killed 15 people and wounded dozens more at a political rally in southwestern Pakistan.The claim for Tuesday’s attack in Quetta, capital of restive Balochistan province, was made through the group’s propaganda arm. Balochistan interior minister Hamza Shafqat gave an updated death toll of 15.Dozens were also wounded in the attack by a suicide bomber with eight kilograms (17.5 pounds) of explosives in a stadium parking lot in Quetta, where hundreds of members of the Balochistan National Party (BNP) had gathered, Shafqat said.Balochistan, a province on the border with Iran and Afghanistan, is regularly the scene of violence, often carried out by jihadists from the regional branch of the Islamic State, or Baloch separatists.Balochistan is Pakistan’s largest and most resource-rich province, but also its poorest, with roughly 70 percent of the population living below the poverty line. Baloch separatists claim to be fighting to end discrimination against the Baloch people on their land.Pakistani forces have been battling an insurgency in the province for more than a decade. In 2024 the region saw a sharp rise in violence, with 782 people killed, according to the Center for Research and Security Studies in Islamabad.While Islamic State jihadists consider political parties and state institutions to be heretical, they rarely attack Baloch activists.But on Tuesday evening in the Quetta stadium parking lot as BNP rally participants were dispersing, a suicide bomber detonated explosives.IS published a photo of the alleged attacker, his face hidden by a scarf.BNP leader Akhtar Mengal, who at the time of the attack was leaving the rally after delivering a speech, posted on X that he was “safe, but deeply heartbroken at the loss of our workers.”The BNP campaigns on a platform calling for greater rights and economic investment in the wellbeing of members of the Baloch ethnicity.Since 2014, China has invested significantly in building a road-and-infrastructure project in Balochistan linked to its One Belt One Road initiative.Many Baloch, however, say the benefits have been reaped only by outsiders.Since January 1, according to AFP figures, more than 430 people, mostly members of the security forces, have been killed in violence carried out by armed groups fighting the state in Balochistan and neighboring Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Elsewhere in Balochistan on Tuesday, five paramilitary personnel were killed and four wounded when a homemade bomb exploded as their convoy passed through a district near the Iranian border, a senior local official told AFP.In March, Baloch Liberation Army separatists carried out a spectacular hostage-taking of some 350 people on a train there. Authorities said at least 31 people were killed.

Families huddled hungry and homeless days after a deadly earthquake hit eastern Afghanistan, not daring to set foot in the few remaining buildings for fear an aftershock could bring them down.The initial powerful 6.0-magnitude earthquake struck remote regions along the border with Pakistan, killing more than 1,400 people, with at least six strong aftershocks and countless smaller tremors.Some farming villages tucked among the green mountainsides were flattened, with people still under the rubble days later.Elsewhere, some houses were only partially destroyed, but residents preferred to brave the elements than risk being crushed.Still haunted by the “terrifying night” when the quake destroyed his house in the village of Dar-i-nur in Nangarhar province, Emran Mohammad Aref said he had since slept with four other family members outside on a rough plastic mat.”There was a tremor yesterday and there was also one this morning,” Aref told AFP. “Now we have no place to live and we are asking everyone for help.”While those with the means fled the village, residents who had no choice but to stay cobbled together makeshift shelters with whatever they could find among the destruction.Even in Jalalabad, Nangarhar’s provincial capital, which suffered no damage but felt the quake and its aftershocks, “we are very afraid”, said Fereshta, a 42-year-old doctor.”Every time I take a step, I feel like the ground is shaking. We don’t stay inside the house and we sleep in the garden, constantly thinking there will be another quake,” she said.- ‘Give us shelter’ -Similar scenes are playing out across the affected region, some in the isolated areas of hard-hit Kunar province that are still cut off from aid by landslides caused by the quake and aftershocks.But in fleeing their homes — often built on high ground — and taking refuge in low-lying fields, riverbeds or by roadsides, survivors risk being hit by rockfall if aftershocks strike, warned Ijaz Ulhaq Yaad, a senior official in Kunar’s Nurgal district.”The area is very dangerous, you cannot stay there long or even walk through it,” said Yaad.The United Nations said it has 14,000 tents ready for distribution.The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) told AFP it has at least 700 tents available, but cannot deliver them to survivors because of difficult access to the villages.”Help us, give us shelter, help my children, we have nothing left,” pleaded Sorat, a housewife injured in the quake along with her husband and children.After being pulled from the ruins of her house by rescuers, she was treated in a regional hospital, then sent back to her village, where nothing awaits her, she told AFP.While waiting for aid, “we are staying in the valley”, she said, sitting in her blue all-enveloping burqa on a traditional simple woven bed surrounded by her three small children.This earthquake, one of the deadliest in Afghanistan in decades, is “the last thing families with young children need in a country where many don’t have enough food, and a large portion of the children are already malnourished”, the World Food Programme said, adding the situation “is brutal”.Afghanistan, still fragile after decades of war and a prolonged humanitarian crisis, has been rocked by other severe, deadly quakes in recent years — one in 2023 in western Herat, on the other side of the country near Iran.That first 6.3-magnitude tremor was followed by at least eight powerful aftershocks and destroyed entire villages.

Hope was quickly fading of finding survivors in the rubble of homes devastated by the weekend’s powerful earthquake in eastern Afghanistan, as emergency services struggled to reach remote villages on Wednesday.A shallow magnitude-6.0 earthquake hit the mountainous region bordering Pakistan late on Sunday, collapsing mud-brick homes on families as they slept.Fearful of the near-constant aftershocks rattling the area, people huddled in the open air while rescuers struggled to unearth those trapped under the heaps of flattened buildings.The earthquake killed more than 1,400 people and injured over 3,300, Taliban authorities said, making it one of the deadliest in decades to hit the impoverished country.The vast majority of the casualties were in Kunar province, with a dozen dead and hundreds hurt in nearby Nangarhar and Laghman provinces.In Kunar’s Nurgal district, victims remained trapped under the rubble and were difficult to rescue, local official Ijaz Ulhaq Yaad told AFP on Wednesday.”There are some villages which have still not received aid,” he said.Landslides caused by the earthquake stymied access to already isolated villages.The non-governmental group Save the Children said one of its aid teams “had to walk for 20 kilometres (12 miles) to reach villages cut off by rock falls, carrying medical equipment on their backs with the help of community members”.The World Health Organization warned the number of casualties from the earthquake was expected to rise, “as many remain trapped in destroyed buildings”.More than 12,000 people have been directly affected by the earthquake, according to ActionAid, noting women and girls were particularly vulnerable in emergencies as they face steep restrictions under the Taliban authorities.An AFP journalist in Mazar Dara village in Kunar said a small mobile clinic was deployed to provide emergency care but people were still in desperate need of emergency food, water and shelter.One family of 10 shared a meagre meal of just two pieces of bread, he said.The World Food Programme said its teams were working to provide provisions but “the reality is brutal” in a country where many already go hungry.- Deepening crisis -This is the third major earthquake since the Taliban took power in 2021, but there are even fewer resources for the cash-strapped government’s response after the United States slashed assistance to the country when President Donald Trump took office in January.Even before the earthquake, the United Nations estimated it had obtained less than a third of the funding required for operations countrywide.Multiple countries have pledged assistance but NGOs and the UN have voiced alarm that dwindling aid could hamper relief efforts in one of the poorest countries in the world. In two days, the Taliban government’s defence ministry said it organised 155 helicopter flights to evacuate around 2,000 injured and their relatives to regional hospitals.On Tuesday, a defence ministry commission said it had instructed “the relevant institutions to take measures in all areas to normalise the lives of the earthquake victims”, without providing further details on the plans to do so. Deputy government spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat said a camp had been set up in Khas Kunar district to coordinate emergency aid, while two other sites were opened near the epicentre “to oversee the transfer of the injured, the burial of the dead, and the rescue of survivors”.After decades of conflict, Afghanistan is facing endemic poverty, severe drought and the influx of millions of Afghans forced back to the country by neighbours Pakistan and Iran in the years since the Taliban takeover.”This earthquake could not have come at a worse time,” Jagan Chapagain, secretary general of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said in a statement late Tuesday.”The disaster not only brings immediate suffering but also deepens Afghanistan’s already fragile humanitarian crisis.”Afghanistan is frequently hit by earthquakes, with the country still recovering from previous disasters. Western Herat province was devastated in October 2023 by a 6.3-magnitude earthquake, which killed more than 1,500 people and damaged or destroyed more than 63,000 homes.And a 5.9-magnitude quake struck the eastern province of Paktika in June 2022, killing more than 1,000 people and leaving tens of thousands homeless.

At least 25 people were killed in three attacks in Pakistan on Tuesday, officials said, including 14 who died after a suicide bomber targeted a political rally in the southwestern province of Balochistan.  Dozens of people were wounded in that explosion, which took place in the parking lot of a stadium in the provincial capital, Quetta, where hundreds of members of the Balochistan National Party (BNP) had gathered, two provincial officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.At least seven of the wounded were in critical condition, the officials said.Another attack in Balochistan, near the border with Iran, claimed five lives on Tuesday, while six soldiers were killed after a suicide attack on their base in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Balochistan is Pakistan’s largest and most resource-rich province, but also its poorest, and regularly ranks among the lowest on human development indicator scorecards. The BNP campaigns on a platform calling for greater rights and economic investment in the wellbeing of members of the Baloch ethnicity.The party’s chief, Akhtar Mengal, had just finished speaking at the Quetta rally and was leaving the venue when the attack occurred. He said he was “safe” in a post on social media. Since 2014, China has invested significantly in building a road-and-infrastructure project in Balochistan linked to its One Belt One Road initiative. Many Baloch, however, say the benefits have been reaped only by outsiders.Pakistani forces have been battling an insurgency in the province for more than a decade, and in 2024 the region saw a sharp rise in violence, with 782 people killed. Elsewhere in Balochistan on Tuesday, five paramilitary personnel were killed and four wounded when a homemade bomb exploded as their convoy passed through a district near the Iranian border, a senior local official told AFP.No group immediately claimed responsibility for either attack. – Khyber Pakhtunkhwa attack -Since January 1, according to AFP figures, more than 430 people, mostly members of the security forces, have been killed in violence carried out by armed groups fighting the state in Balochistan and neighboring Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. On Tuesday, six soldiers were killed in an attack on a paramilitary headquarters in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa city of Bannu, the military said. “A suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into the gate of the FC camp, after which five more suicide attackers entered,” a government official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.The ensuing exchange of fire lasted 12 hours, ending after the six attackers were killed, the official said. The militant group Ittehad-ul-Mujahideen Pakistan claimed responsibility for that attack.

Strong aftershocks to a powerful earthquake that killed more than 1,400 people at the weekend rattled eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday as survivors in remote hard-hit villages prepared for another night without shelter. Temporary shelters had not yet reached the Mazar Dara area of Kunar province, an AFP journalist said, with roads still blocked to the remote, mountainous region bordering Pakistan where the worst of the earthquake was felt. “There is no food… there is nothing, everything has been buried in the rubble,” Nurgal district official Ijaz Ulhaq Yaad told AFP. Residents, including elderly people and children were “in the open air” with little to protect them from wet weather, he said, adding that “we still feel strong aftershocks”.A 5.2-magnitude earthquake jolted the region near the epicentre of the magnitude 6.0 earthquake that hit late Sunday night — one of at least six aftershocks recorded by the US Geological Survey.”These aftershocks are constant, but they have not caused any casualties yet,” Ehsanullah Ehsan, the disaster management spokesman in Kunar, told AFP. The number of victims from Sunday’s earthquake has mounted steadily, with 1,411 people dead and 3,124 injured in Kunar alone, chief Taliban government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said on Tuesday, making it one of the deadliest to hit the country in decades. Another dozen people were killed and hundreds injured in neighbouring Nangarhar province.Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the world, with dwindling aid since the Taliban seized power in 2021, undermining its ability to respond to disasters.The devastation could affect “hundreds of thousands”, said United Nations humanitarian coordinator for Afghanistan Indrika Ratwatte.Rescuers searched through the night and all day for survivors in the rubble of homes flattened in Kunar, where more than 5,400 houses were destroyed, government spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat said.The European Union said it was sending 130 tonnes of emergency supplies and providing one million euros ($1.2 million) to help victims of the deadly quake. The bloc has become one of the key aid donors to Afghanistan after the United States — previously the country’s largest aid provider — cut all but a slice of its assistance after President Donald Trump took office in January.The aid cuts risk impeding the response to the earthquake, sector experts told AFP, in a country already facing one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises after decades of conflict.”The scale of need far exceeds current resources,” the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said, noting that funding cuts had hit humanitarian air services, “limiting access to remote communities”. IFRC said it had launched an emergency appeal for 25 million Swiss francs ($31 million) to help with the earthquake response and recovery, as various countries pledged to send support.As Taliban military helicopters flew in food and continued to transport victims, residents buried their dead, including children, wrapping them in white shrouds and praying over their bodies before laying them to rest.- ‘Find their families’ -Sunday’s earthquake epicentre was about 27 kilometres (17 miles) from Jalalabad, according to the USGS, and just eight kilometres below the Earth’s surface.Such relatively shallow quakes can cause more damage, especially as the majority of Afghans live in mud-brick homes vulnerable to collapse.Many of those living in the quake-hit villages were among the more than four million Afghans forced back to the country from Iran and Pakistan in recent years, many coming through the Torkham border crossing in Nangarhar province. Rahmatullah Khaksar, who heads the emergency ward at a hospital in Jalalabad, Nangarhar’s provincial capital, said they had received 600 injured since Sunday night. “Most of the patients were trauma patients. They were hit on the head, back, abdomen and legs,” he told AFP, adding they had cleared a ward for unidentified patients “so they will stay there until they find their families”.Afghanistan is frequently hit by earthquakes, especially in the Hindu Kush mountain range near the junction of the Eurasia and India tectonic plates.Western Herat province was devastated in October 2023 by a 6.3-magnitude earthquake, which killed more than 1,500 people and damaged or destroyed more than 63,000 homes.A 5.9-magnitude quake struck the eastern province of Paktika in June 2022, killing more than 1,000 people and leaving tens of thousands homeless.