KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – At least five members of one family, including a woman and three children, were killed when a drone struck their home in Afghanistan’s eastern Kunar province on Wednesday, local sources said.
According to the sources, the strike hit Mano Gai district around 9 p.m., and the victims had recently been deported from Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and had resettled in the area shortly before the attack.
Sources could not confirm which country carried out the strike. However, Kunar, a rugged, mountainous province sharing a long border with Pakistan, has been repeatedly targeted by Pakistani air, drone, and rocket strikes in recent months.
Taliban authorities have yet to comment on the incident.
The strike comes amid heightened cross-border tensions between Pakistan and the Taliban authorities that have escalated since late February, with frequent rocket fire, artillery shelling, and airstrikes along the frontier.
A week earlier, Pakistani strikes on Dangam district in Kunar killed at least three people and wounded 14 others, many of them women and children, local officials reported. Two weeks ago, strikes on Kunar University and several districts, including Dangam, killed at least seven and injured more than 90, according to the Taliban.
The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) documented 769 civilian casualties from Pakistani strikes in the first three months of 2026, including 372 killed and 297 injured. Taliban authorities have reported significantly higher figures.
The ongoing violence has displaced thousands of families, destroyed civilian homes, schools, hospitals, and other infrastructure in border districts, and worsened the humanitarian situation in an already fragile region.
Despite repeated international calls for a ceasefire and mediation efforts by countries including China, Russia, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia, the two sides have not reached an agreement to halt the fighting.
