Afghanistan says children among four killed in latest attacks by Pakistan 

Four people have been killed, including three children, in an overnight Pakistani shelling attack in eastern Afghanistan, Afghan officials report as fighting continues for a third consecutive week.

Mustaghfir Gubuz, spokesperson for the governor in Khost province, told the AFP news agency on Monday that at midnight (19:30 GMT on Sunday), Pakistani forces “fired mortar shells on the Nari village of Gurbuz district, killing a woman and a child”.

The governor’s office also said in a statement that mortar shelling killed two children in the Afghan Dubai area of Khost.

Separately, government spokesperson Hamdullah Fitrat said on X that one person was killed in the eastern province of Nuristan on Sunday when shelling hit a “civilian home”.

According to Afghan authorities, in the past week, cross-border fighting has killed at least 18 civilians.

On Sunday, the World Food Programme (WFP) said it had begun mobilising to provide “immediate lifesaving food” to more than 20,000 families that had been displaced in Afghanistan due to the conflict.

In a news release, John Aylieff, WFP country director in Afghanistan, said: “We cannot afford to look away.”

“Afghanistan is caught between two conflicts, and any further instability will push millions deeper into hunger while adding strain to a region already on the brink,” Aylieff said.

Tensions boiled over at the end of February and resulted in some of the worst fighting in recent years when Afghanistan launched cross-border attacks in response to Pakistani air attacks that Kabul said killed civilians.

The attacks led to Pakistan declaring “open war” against the Afghan authorities and targeting the capital.

Islamabad accuses Kabul of harbouring fighters from the Pakistan Taliban (Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan) who have claimed responsibility for attacks on Pakistan – a charge that Afghanistan’s Taliban has denied.

China announced on Monday that its special envoy Yue Xiaoyong had spent a week through Saturday mediating between the two countries and urging an immediate ceasefire.

Beijing’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Lin Jian said China has “consistently mediated the conflict between Afghanistan and Pakistan through its own channels”.