KHOST, Afghanistan: Three children and a woman were killed by Pakistani shelling in eastern Afghanistan overnight between Sunday (March 15) and Monday, Afghan officials said.
In total, 18 civilians have been killed in Afghanistan in the past week as a result of cross-border clashes between the two sides, according to the Afghan authorities.
"At 12:00 am last night (1930 GMT Sunday), the Pakistani forces fired mortar shells on the Nari village of Gurbuz district, killing a woman and a child", Mustaghfir Gurbuz, the governor's spokesman in eastern Khost province, told AFP.
Shells were also fired on a market, a health clinic and on another village, wounding four people, including a woman. Two of the wounded were in a critical condition, he added.
Pakistani mortar shelling killed two children on Sunday night in the Afghan Dubai area of Khost, the governor's office said in a statement.
One person was also killed in eastern Nuristan province when shelling hit a "civilian home" on Sunday, the government's deputy spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat said on X.
Immediate independent verification of deaths and injuries is difficult to obtain in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, given the hard-to-reach locations.
Both sides maintain they do not target civilians.
But on Friday, the United Nations mission in Afghanistan confirmed the deaths of at least 75 civilians in the country since clashes with Pakistan intensified on February 26.
The neighbours have had strained relationships for months.
Islamabad accuses Afghanistan of harbouring militants from the Pakistani Taliban (TTP), who have claimed responsibility for a series of deadly attacks in Pakistan, as well as from the Islamic State Khorasan Province.
The Afghan Taliban authorities deny the charge.
Dozens of people were killed in fighting between the two countries in October last year, which led to the near-total closure of the border.
Clashes decreased after mediation but the conflict flared again on February 26 when Afghanistan launched a border offensive in retaliation for earlier Pakistani air strikes said by Islamabad to be targeting the TTP.
Pakistan then declared "open war" against the Taliban authorities, bombing the capital Kabul on February 27.
Repeated border clashes in recent weeks have hit trade and about 115,000 people have been forced to leave their homes, according to the UN refugee agency.
The World Food Programme said on Sunday that it has started delivering "life-saving food" to over 20,000 displaced Afghan families and warned that "further instability will push millions into hunger". - AFP
