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20-05-2024
KABUL/ MADRID: Three Afghan nationals and three Spanish tourists were killed in central Afghanistan’s Bamyan province, the Taliban government has said, as it raised the death toll from the attack in a market.
On Saturday, the government said that the bodies of the three Afghans and three Spanish tourists were transported to the capital, Kabul.
The group was fired on while walking through a bazaar in the mountainous city of Bamyan, about 180km (110 miles) from Kabul, on Friday.
“All dead bodies have been shifted to Kabul and are in the forensic department and the wounded are also in Kabul. Both dead and wounded include women,” Ministry of Interior Affairs’ spokesman Abdul Mateen Qani told media.
“Among the eight wounded, of whom four are foreigners, only one elderly foreign woman is not in a very stable situation.”
According to hospital sources in Bamyan, the wounded were from Norway, Australia, Lithuania and Spain.
Qani said that the fatalities included two Afghan civilians and one Taliban member.
“They were roaming in the bazaar when they were attacked,” he added.
Seven suspects were in custody and one of them was wounded, according to Qani, who said the investigation was continuing.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.
Spain’s government on Friday announced that three of the dead were Spanish tourists, adding that at least one other Spanish national was wounded.
“Overwhelmed by the news of the murder of Spanish tourists in Afghanistan,” Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez posted on X.
The bodies would likely be brought back to Spain on Sunday, according to Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares, who spoke on Spanish public television TVE.
He said one of the wounded had already undergone surgery in Kabul.
Afghanistan’s flailing tourism sector has seen the number of foreign tourists up 120 percent year on year in 2023, reaching nearly 5,200, according to official figures.
Bamyan is Afghanistan’s top tourist destination, home to a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the remains of two giant Buddha statues that the Taliban blew up during their previous rule of Afghanistan in 2001.
Since taking over the country again in 2021 after the withdrawal of United States-led forces, the Taliban have promised to restore security and encourage a small but growing number of tourists.
Friday’s attack was the deadliest since the Taliban took over three years ago.
The Spanish embassy was evacuated in 2021, along with other Western missions, after the Taliban took back control of Kabul.
The number of foreign tourists visiting Afghanistan rose 120 percent year on year in 2023, reaching nearly 5,200, according to official figures.
The Taliban government has yet to be officially recognized by any country, in part because of its heavy restrictions on women, but it has welcomed foreign tourism.
“Afghanistan’s enemies don’t present the country in a good light,” said Information and Culture Minister Khairullah Khairkhwa but “if these people come and see what it’s really like,” he added, “they will definitely share a good image of it.”
Wells, on a trip with travel company Untamed Borders, which also offers tours of Syria and Somalia, describes his visit as a way to connect with Afghanistan’s people.
He describes a “sense of guilt for the departure” of United States troops.
“I really felt we had a horrible exit, it created such a vacuum and disaster,” he said. “It’s good to help these people and keep relations.” (Int’l News Desk)
