The United Nations (UN) has condemned the twin deadly attacks that targeted a school and education center in Kabul on Tuesday resulting in the killing of at least six people and wounding of twenty. Condemning the attacks, Ramiz Alakbarov, UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Afghanistan, said, “Violence in or around schools is never acceptable. For the people of Afghanistan, already beleaguered by forty years of war, schools should be safe havens and places where children can learn and flourish.”

The bombings took place in West Kabul’s Dasht-e-Barchi area mainly populated by the country’s ethnic Shiite Hazara minority. Sunni extremist groups and ISIS have repeatedly targeted the country’s Shiite minorities in the past.

“Those responsible for the crime targeting schools and children must be brought to justice,” the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said in a tweet.

The ISKP, the regional branch of ISIS, is known for bombing mosques, community centers, and schools in the area. Last year, over 90 students were killed when an ISIS suicide bomber detonated himself in a girls’ school in the area.

The Tuesday bombing was the first in recent months, which reignited fear among the country’s persecuted Hazara minority. Shia religious leaders in the country have long been demanding the security of their community places like mosques and schools.

Within the community, there is little trust in assurances given by their de facto rulers, the Taliban, a Sunni Islamist group comprising mainly of ethnic Pashtuns, with a brutal history of persecuting the country’s Hazara community during their earlier stint in power in the 90s.

(SAM)