At least 42 children were injured in an explosion at a school in Dasht-e-Barchi, an area in western Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan.

According to the foreign news agency AFP, the United Nations mission in Afghanistan confirmed the incident. The UN said the injured children were between 9 and 14 years old.

According to Afghanistan’s Directorate of Mine Action Coordination, a hand grenade exploded at the school on Monday afternoon, injuring dozens of children.

Richard Bennett, the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Afghanistan, condemned the incident, calling it a “heinous attack.”

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A local woman told AFP that the explosion occurred as children were being dismissed from school. The woman, who did not reveal her name due to security concerns, said so many people were injured after the blast that she could not even count them.

The private primary school appealed for prayers for the injured on its Facebook page but did not provide further details about the incident.

According to the UN, decades of war in Afghanistan have left explosive remnants of war across the country. Afghanistan ranks third in the world in terms of deaths caused by such explosive materials.

Dasht-e-Barchi has previously witnessed several deadly explosions. In 2021, a car bomb exploded outside a girls’ school, killing 90 people and injuring hundreds.