At least 400 people were killed and 250 injured in a Pakistani air strike on a hospital in Kabul, the Afghan Taliban said, while Pakistan rejected the claims.
The 2,000-bed Omid Hospital, a substance-abuse rehabilitation center in the Afghan capital, was reportedly hit in a Pakistani air strike late on March 16.
Efforts were under way to rescue the injured and recover the bodies, according to Hamdullah Fitrat, deputy spokesman for the Taliban government in Afghanistan.
"The Pakistani military regime carried out an air strike at approximately 9 p.m. [local time, on March 16] on the Omid Addiction Treatment Hospital, a 2,000-bed facility dedicated to the treatment of drug addiction," he said in a post on X, adding that "large sections of the hospital have been destroyed."
Pakistan's Information Ministry claimed the strike had targeted military installations and terrorist support infrastructure in Kabul and Nangarhar Province and did not deliberately hit civilians.
"Technical support infrastructure and ammunition storage facilities at two locations in Kabul were effectively destroyed," Pakistani Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said in a post on X.
"The visible secondary detonations after the strikes clearly indicate the presence of large ammunition depots," he added.
The claims from either side could not be independently verified.
In response to the reported deadly air strike on a hospital in Kabul, the UN Human Rights Office said the incident "must be investigated promptly, independently, and transparently," adding that those responsible must be "held to account in line with international standards."
"Witnesses described a scene of total destruction at the hospital site, and seeing hundreds of people looking for their relatives," the UN statement said.
According to the UN Human Rights office, since the hostilities between Pakistan and Afghanistan escalated at the end of last month, at least 289 Afghan civilians, including 104 children and 59 women, have been killed or injured, with tens of thousands have been displaced by the fighting.
