On 23 November 2014, a suicide bomber detonated his explosives at a volleyball match being held in the
Yahyakhel District
Yahyakhel District ( ps, يحيی خېل ولسوالۍ, fa, ولسوالی یحییخیل) is a district of Paktika Province, Afghanistan
Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی اف ...
of
Afghanistan's southeastern province
Paktika
Paktika (Pashto/Dari: ) is one of the 34 provinces of Afghanistan, located in the eastern part of the country. Forming part of the larger Loya Paktia region, Paktika has a population of about 789,000, mostly ethnic Pashtuns. The town of Sharana ...
. The explosion immediately killed at least 50 civilians and injured another 60. Many children were among the dead and wounded.
By the next day, the death toll had climbed to 61.
Afghanistan's intelligence agency named the
Haqqani network, which is closely aligned with the
Taliban, as being behind the attack.
Reactions
* President
Ashraf Ghani, who visited some of the wounded at a military hospital in
Kabul, condemned attack as "inhumane and un-Islamic," saying "this kind of brutal killing of civilians cannot be justified."
*
Nicholas Haysom, head of the
UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), called the attack an "atrocity." A statement released by his spokesperson, Secretary-General
Ban Ki-moon
Ban Ki-moon (; ; born 13 June 1944) is a South Korean politician and diplomat who served as the eighth secretary-general of the United Nations between 2007 and 2016. Prior to his appointment as secretary-general, Ban was his country's Minister ...
denounced the attack as "fundamentally abhorrent" and expressed his "steadfast solidarity with the people of Afghanistan in refusing to be cowed by such attacks."
References
2014 murders in Afghanistan
Terrorist incidents in Afghanistan in 2014
Suicide bombings in Afghanistan
2014 massacres of the War in Afghanistan (2001–2021)
Mass murder in 2014
Attacks in Afghanistan in 2014
History of Paktika Province
November 2014 crimes in Asia
{{Afghanistan-hist-stub