By Staff Reporter
BAJAUR: Two schoolboys were killed Thursday when a quadcopter drone struck a hilly area of Bajaur district in Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, local residents and officials said.
The drone hit the Shahi Thangi area, roughly 25 miles from the district headquarters at Khar, shortly before noon as the boys — ages 10 and 12 — were walking home from school. Residents rushed the critically wounded children to the District Headquarters Hospital in Khar, where both were pronounced dead on arrival.
The origin of the drone and the identity of those operating it remained unknown on Thursday evening. Police in Bajaur have opened an investigation to determine who was responsible and what motivated the strike, officials said.
The deaths of the two children drew swift condemnation from local residents and political figures. Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Member of the Provincial Assembly Dr. Hamidur Rehman and Sahibzada Haroon Rashid, head of the Bajaur Aman Jirga, both denounced the attack in the strongest terms. In statements posted on social media shortly after the incident, the two leaders demanded a thorough investigation and referred to the boys as martyred students.
The strike came amid persistent insecurity in Bajaur, a former tribal district that has long been a focus of counterterrorism operations but has seen occasional militant activity and cross-border tensions.
In a related development along the Afghan frontier, relatives of Pakistani transporters stranded on the Afghan side of the Torkham border crossing ended a protest on Thursday after receiving assurances from local authorities that efforts were underway to secure their repatriation. The demonstrators had blocked the main road leading to the crossing, snarling traffic for hours. Most of the transporters have been stuck in Afghanistan since Pakistani authorities closed the border in October of last year.
Shakir Afridi, a local tribal elder who took part in earlier talks, said Afghan Taliban officials had told a jirga delegation three weeks ago that they had no objection to the transporters’ return — provided Pakistani border and immigration authorities allowed them to cross.
The Khyber Transporters Association moved quickly to distance itself from the protest. Association president Azeemullah Shinwari said the group had neither organized nor been consulted about the demonstration. He said more than 600 transporters and nearly 900 vehicles remain parked on the Afghan side, awaiting clearance from Islamabad. “We believe that the issue would be resolved with negotiations,” Shinwari said. The association is working closely with government officials to reach an amicable solution as soon as possible, he added.
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