The balance sheet is extremely heavy.

A suicide bomber struck an educational center in Kabul (Afghanistan) on Friday morning.

At least 19 people were killed, among them many students, announced a police spokesman.

“Students were preparing for an exam when a suicide bomber blew himself up in this educational center.

Unfortunately, 19 people died and 27 others were injured,” police spokesman Khalid Zadran said.

This educational center prepares students for their university entrance exams.

The blast occurred in the Dasht-e-Barchi neighborhood in western Kabul, a predominantly Shia Muslim area home to the minority Hazara community, scene of some of the deadliest attacks in Afghanistan.

Security teams are on site, the nature of the attack and details of the casualties will be communicated at a later date.

Videos posted on social media and photos published by local media show bloodied victims being carried from the scene of the explosion.

Several attacks claimed by EI-K

"Attacking civilian targets proves the enemy's inhuman cruelty and lack of moral standards," Interior Ministry spokesman Abdul Nafy Takor said earlier.

On April 20, at least six people were killed and 24 injured in two explosions that hit a school for boys in the same district in the west of the capital.

Dasht-e-Barchi has been heavily hit in recent years and since the Taliban's return to power in 2021 by several attacks claimed by EI-K, the regional branch of the jihadist group Islamic State, which considers the Hazaras as heretics.

In May 2021, a series of explosions also occurred in front of a school for girls in the same district, killing 85 people, mostly high school girls, and injuring more than 300.

First a car bomb exploded in front of the school, then two more bombs followed as students rushed outside.

IS, which had already claimed responsibility for an attack in October 2020 against an educational center (24 dead) in the same area, is strongly suspected of having carried out this attack.

Less violence for a year

The Taliban's return to power in August 2021 ended two decades of war in Afghanistan and led to a significant reduction in violence, but security has begun to deteriorate in recent months.

Education is an extremely sensitive issue in Afghanistan, with the Taliban preventing many girls from returning to secondary education.

The Islamic State group also opposes the education of women and girls.

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