No longer less than 15 dead in stampede shut to Pakistan consulate in jap Afghanistan

By Ahmad Sultan

JALALABAD (Reuters) – No longer less than 15 other folks had been killed in stampede among hundreds of Afghans gathered birth air Pakistan’s consulate on Tuesday as jostling broke out between other folks applying for visas, officials within the jap metropolis of Jalalabad acknowledged.

An estimated 3,000 Afghans had congregated on the initiating floor birth air the consulate, in a position to construct up tokens wanted to use for a visa, two provincial officials informed Reuters a day after the tragedy.

Eleven of the 15 victims had been females, and a lot of senior electorate had been among extra than a dozen injured, Sohrab Qaderi, a provincial council member, acknowledged.

“The visa candidates jostled to salvage their token from the consulate officials…the team bought uncontrolled, resulting in a stampede,” acknowledged an official in Jalalabad acknowledged.

Tens of hundreds of Afghans yearly slither to neighbouring Pakistan to salvage scientific medication, education and jobs. The 2 countries fragment a practically 2,600-kilometer border.

Pakistan hosts about 3 million Afghan refugees and financial migrants, who enjoy fled violence, spiritual persecution and poverty of their warfare-torn country.

Officers within the Pakistan embassy in Kabul weren’t without lengthen on hand for comment.

(additional reporting by Abdul Qadir Sediqi in Kabul and Charlotte Greenfield in Islamabad; Writing by Rupam Jain, Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)