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Seven people of Hazara ethnic group brutally killed in Afghanistan’s restive east

Afghan security forces keep watch near the site of an explosion in Kabul on March 9, 2018. (Photo by AFP)

At least seven members of the persecuted Hazara ethnic group have been brutally killed in Afghanistan’s restive province of Nangarhar, in the latest attack against the largely Shia minority.

Ajmal Omar, a member of Nangarhar provincial council member, said on Thursday that the migrant Hazara laborers had their hands bound behind their backs and been shot to death late Wednesday.

Juma Gul Hemat, the provincial police chief, confirmed the murders, saying four people had been detained as part of an ongoing investigation into the gruesome incident.

No group has claimed responsibility for the murders. However, the Daesh terrorist group controls parts of the Nangarhar province, which borders Pakistan to the east.

The deadly incident took place almost 20 kilometers from the eastern city of Jalalabad near the Pakistan border, an area where a large number of militants are believed to have influence, including the Taliban militant group and a local affiliate of the Daesh group.

The flashpoint city witnessed the gunning down of three female media workers on Tuesday in separate attacks that occurred just minutes apart. Earlier that day, a female doctor was killed in the city by a magnetic bomb that had been attached to her vehicle.

The Hazara community on both sides of the border has suffered decades of persecution and attacks by violent militant groups operating across the troubled region.

For the past several years, the minority, which makes up roughly 10 to 20 percent of the Afghan population, has been growingly taken the brunt of soaring violence across the war-torn country with Daesh terrorists attacking the group’s mosques, schools, rallies, and hospitals.

Taliban militants have also targeted Hazara people over the years, abducting and killing commuters of the minority group traveling on Afghanistan’s perilous roads with impunity.

The Hazara people have also been targeted outside of Afghanistan. Members of the ethnic group in Baluchistan, Pakistan’s poorest province, have long been persecuted for their faith, facing targeted attacks and large-scale bombings that have killed hundreds in the past two decades.


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