Incident took place while the children were returning home from school after completing their classes
Two school-going children were killed in a drone strike in the Shah Tangi area of Mamund tehsil in Bajaur district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa on Thursday, police said.
Deputy Superintendent of Police Niaz Muhammad confirmed the incident and said the injured were immediately taken to the hospital; however, both children succumbed to their injuries on the way.
According to local sources, the incident took place while the children were returning home from school after completing their classes.
Read: 3 injured in terrorist drone attack on cricket ground in K-P’s Bajaur
The deceased were identified as 10-year-old Hassan, son of Israr, and a 12-year-old boy, the son of local religious scholar Maulana Mumtaz.
The incident triggered panic in the area, with residents strongly condemning the strike and demanding a transparent investigation.
Sources said grief gripped the affected families, while a large number of local residents gathered at the site after the incident.
The origin of the quadcopter and those responsible for the attack have yet to be established.
Earlier this month, at least three people were injured in a terrorist drone attack on a cricket ground in the same Mamund area.
Last month, while addressing a jirga, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Sohail Afridi condemned the drone strikes, as the gathering rejected what it described as the recurring pattern of civilian deaths being dismissed as mistakes.
The jirga, which displayed rare political unity and included lawmakers from both treasury and opposition benches representing tribal districts, condemned the continuing drone strikes in the region and decided to convene a series of gatherings on the issue.
Addressing the gathering, the chief minister said civilian deaths caused by both terrorism and drone attacks were unacceptable.
“The people of tribal areas cannot be forced to pay the double price in the shape of their lives,” he said. “Neither terrorism nor civilian deaths in drone strikes can be justified.”
Also Read: K-P jirga rejects drone strikes, announces emergency assembly session
“Despite modern technology, the continuous loss of innocent lives due to so-called mistakes is unacceptable under any circumstances,” Gandapur added. “Apologies cannot compensate for lost lives. The damage is irreparable.”
Earlier this month, following public outrage in his constituency over drone attacks, the chief minister hinted at introducing legislation to criminalise collateral damage resulting from such incidents.
“We held a meeting on bringing a law against drone attacks, but ‘they’ have protected themselves in the Constitution against drone attacks … However, we can legislate against collateral damage,” he said during a session of the K-P Assembly convened to discuss the matter.
The chief minister alleged that whenever he protested against a drone strike, he received a message saying that “they” understood the situation and were sorry, without elaborating further.
Later, a grand Loya Jirga of tribal elders agreed to form a smaller representative jirga to negotiate with the federal government and other stakeholders on behalf of the people in K-P’s merged districts.
