UN says Pakistan-Taliban border clashes killed a child and injured an aid worker near Torkham
The UN's humanitarian office OCHA said fighting between Pakistani and Taliban forces near the Torkham crossing killed a local child and injured an aid worker on Wednesday, and warned that the clashes threaten Afghans returning from Pakistan. The two sides have given conflicting accounts of who started recent fighting.
Fighting near the Torkham border crossing between Pakistan and Afghanistan is putting returning Afghan refugees, local residents and aid workers at risk, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said, according to Xinhua and Afghanistan International.
Neither side’s claims about the clashes can be independently confirmed.
OCHA said a child from the local community was killed and a humanitarian worker helping returnees was injured in clashes on Wednesday 28 October. It said earlier escalations had forced the crossing to close temporarily. “OCHA calls on all parties to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure, including humanitarian personnel and facilities,” the agency said.
More than 600,000 people crossed through Torkham in the first nine months of this year, about 85% of all recorded returns from Pakistan, OCHA said.
Pakistan and the Taliban administration have given conflicting accounts of recent fighting. Pakistan’s Information Ministry said Taliban forces fired on Pakistani posts and homes in Lower South Waziristan on 27 October, killing one civilian, and that Pakistani forces destroyed seven Taliban border posts in response. The Taliban’s Defence Ministry said Pakistan had used drones against the Angoor Adda market and a civilian office in Paktika province, and that its forces responded, Afghanistan International reported. On Friday, Taliban police in Paktia said a child was killed when a mortar shell they said was fired from Pakistan exploded.
Background: Pakistan has repeatedly demanded that the Taliban act against Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militants it says operate from Afghanistan, and it carried out air strikes in Afghanistan in September and early October. The Taliban called those strikes violations of Afghan sovereignty.
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