BAGHLANI-JADID, AFGHANISTAN — Families of young people killed in Afghanistan’s deadliest suicide bombing buried their loved ones Wednesday, while witnesses said some of the victims may have been killed or wounded by security guards who opened fire after the blast.
The death toll from Tuesday’s bombing rose to at least 68, most of them children or teenagers. The blast occurred as the students greeted members of parliament who were visiting a sugar factory in the country’s normally peaceful north. Six lawmakers were among the dead.
U.S.-backed President Hamid Karzai and dozens of other Afghan leaders watched honor guards carry the lawmakers’ coffins down a red carpet at Kabul’s main airport after they were flown by helicopter from the blast site some 95 miles north of the capital.
Two Afghans were arrested in connection with the attack. Provincial police chief Gen. Abdul Rahman Sayed Khail said the two had ordered women to leave the scene of the attack before the bombing, raising suspicions.
Hundreds of mourners gathered at a mosque near the blast site in the town of Baghlani-jadid before moving to a simple hilltop graveyard to bury the dead. A half-dozen bodies were lined up side by side, covered with colorful carpets, as men in turbans knelt beside them in tears.
“My son was supposed to finish school this year, but yesterday I had to peel off his blood- soaked clothes, and today I buried him,” said a man who broke down in tears at one grave site. He did not give his name.
Dr. Khalil Narmgui, of the Baghlani-jadid hospital, who was at the site of the attack, said he heard gunfire from security personnel for a short time after the explosion.
“I ran into a compound, and when the gunfire stopped, I came out and saw that there were dead bodies everywhere,” he said.
Baghlan’s governor, Halam Isakzai, said it was “possible” some victims were killed by gunfire.
