A child was killed and five others were injured after a suspected drone hit Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s South Waziristan District on Friday.
Wana Police Spokesperson Habib Islam told media.com: “The attack took place after 11am, as a result of which one child was killed while five people were injured.”
Makin Station House Officer Abdul Qadir Mehsud also confirmed the drone attack and told media.com locals have set a date for June 23 to hold a jirga with the higher authorities regarding law and order, in which they have invited people belonging to every school of thought.
KP MPA Asif Khan Mehsood told media.com that the alleged incident involved a drone which “targeted school children,” although it was not known whether the drone was Pakistani or from another country.
PTI MNA Zubair Khan Wazir strongly condemned the incident. “Targeting innocent schoolchildren is a deeply distressing and unforgivable act,” he said in a statement on social media.
“This is a grave incident that warrants a thorough and impartial investigation so that the perpetrators are brought to justice.”
The incident was condemned by other politicians from the province as well, such as Afrasiab Khattak and Mohsin Dawar.
Last month, seven minors were among 22 people injured in an alleged quadcopter strike in the Wana tehsil.
The incident came within a fortnight after a suspected quadcopter munitions drop claimed the lives of four children and injured five others in North Waziristan District’s Mir Ali tehsil. The military clarified that security forces were “falsely implicated” in the incident and that it was carried out by the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
Locals there staged a sit-in for over a week with the victims’ bodies, demanding justice, before finally announcing on May 27 that they had ended their protest after reaching an agreement with the local administration.
In March, at least 11 people were killed in Mardan in what locals insisted was a drone strike, but officials said was an operation carried out against militants. According to locals, the deceased were civilians, including women and children, working as shepherds.
An alleged drone attack in the Konrai Raghzai area of Upper South Waziristan district killed one person and injured three others in September last year. While the local sources confirmed the drone attack, there was no official confirmation of the drone strike.
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