translated from Spanish: Kabul airport bombing rises to 170

At least 170 people died, thirteen of them US soldiers, and another 150 were injured in the suicide attack perpetrated on Thursday by the jihadist group Islamic State (IS) at kabul airport, as reported this Friday to Efe health sources and close to the Taliban. So far the total number is 170 dead, including U.S. soldiers, and there are at least 150 wounded, said a source close to the Taliban chiefs, who requested anonymity. The U.S. had said 13 U.S. soldiers were killed and 18 others wounded in the attack. The British Government has also reported the death of British citizens. The Wazir Akbar Khan hospital in the Afghan capital alone has received 145 lifeless bodies following the attack on the capital’s airport, and fifty are being treated with serious injuries, health sources, who requested anonymity, revealed. In addition, another 16 deaths were counted in the hospital of the Italian NGO Emergency in Kabul, while in that center about 40 patients were also admitted with injuries from the explosion, according to the same source. However, the total number of victims of the attack remains uncertain, in the absence of an official count. With the coming to power of the Taliban on 15 August, following the fall of the Afghan Government, public service offices and authorities stopped providing official information on the country’s health situation. The medical coordinator of the Emergency hospital in Kabul, Alberto Zanin, reported that in the last few hours they have increased the number of beds from 100 to 115 to attend to this emergency.” At the moment, there are only four free beds,” he wrote on Twitter without specifying how many of the patients are victims of the attack. Many of the victims are children, some very young, “who arrive with wounds that were caused by shrapnel fragments or the waves of the explosion and burns,” he said. The NGO has also reported on the efforts of the health workers, who have doubled shifts to attend to the situation after the explosion. In a message on the social network, the Taliban’s main spokesman, Zabihulla Mujahid, said that all public health service employees will now be able to “attend their duties regularly in the centre and provinces”, lifting the restrictions imposed on women by the fundamentalist regime.

Original source in Spanish