Seven people were killed in eastern Afghanistan when a scrap collector sawed into a recovered shell, residents and the police told AFP on Tuesday (June 9, 2026).
Decades of conflict have left Afghanistan littered with the explosive remnants of war, with the country registering the third-highest casualty rate globally according to the United Nations.
The latest incident killed five children, the collector and another adult, in Barmal, a district of Paktika province, on Monday (June 8, 2026) evening, police said. One of the victims’ relatives, Yaqoob Khan, said the shell found had been fired from neighbouring Pakistan. There was no independent confirmation of his claim.
“He was opening it near his home and removing the explosives from it so that he could sell them. His children had also gathered around him at the time,” Mr. Khan (40) said. The explosion was so loud that one resident, Abdullah Noor, said he “thought that fighter jets had dropped bombs”.
The 35-year-old described seeing victims “in a very terrible condition”, who had lost their limbs. Another resident, Khair Mohammad, also ran to the house after hearing the blast and said he collected the remains of those killed.
“The condition of the injured was not good, because some had no hands or feet,” he said. Health officials and the police confirmed that several people were wounded in the explosion. The provincial police issued a statement urging people not to touch munitions, and to instead tell the security forces if they find any.
Nick Pond, head of the Mine Action Section of the UN mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), said the highest casualty rates were in Afghanistan’s east. “Scrap metal collection is one of the highest activities that causes accidents in Afghanistan,” he told AFP.
Explosive ordnance killed 126 people and injured 489 others across the country between January 2025 and April this year, UN data shows. Despite the dangers, the number of teams deployed to tackle the problem has been slashed by 64% over the past two years due to funding cuts by donors.
“With humanitarian aid being cut globally, by the time they get to Afghanistan, the money has run out, or they just don’t have much,” Mr. Pond said.
Published – June 09, 2026 10:44 pm IST
