India’s embassy in Afghanistan began issuing visas again yesterday, nearly a week after a massive bombing at its front gate that killed 58 people, the ambassador said.
The reopening of the consular section to the public was the first step toward restoring normalcy at the embassy, Indian Ambassador Jayant Prasad said.
The embassy’s consular section was destroyed in last Monday’s suicide blast, which also wounded around 150 people, and Prasad said it was operating out of a new location.
Among the blast’s victims were four Indians working in the embassy, including the military attache and a diplomat, although most were Afghans.
“We are doing our best to restore normal functions in the embassy and public dealings is an important element,” Prasad said.
Afghan officials have blamed Pakistan’s intelligence service for the blast, a charge Pakistan officials have denied. India and Pakistan are longtime rivals.
Meanwhile, a suicide bomber on a motorcycle blew himself up next to a police patrol in southern Afghanistan yesterday, killing 24 people, including 19 civilians, a provincial police chief said.
The attack in the southern province of Uruzgan also killed five police officers and wounded more than 30 others, Juma Gul Himat said.
The bomber struck the police patrol at a busy intersection of Deh Rawood District, Himat said. Most of those killed and wounded were shopkeepers and young boys selling cigarettes and other goods in the street.
Russia and Ukraine have exchanged prisoners of war in the latest such swap that saw the release of hundreds of captives and was brokered with the help of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), officials said on Monday. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that 189 Ukrainian prisoners, including military personnel, border guards and national guards — along with two civilians — were freed. He thanked the UAE for helping negotiate the exchange. The Russian Ministry of Defense said that 150 Russian troops were freed from captivity as part of the exchange in which each side released 150 people. The reason for the discrepancy in numbers
A shark attack off Egypt’s Red Sea coast killed a tourist and injured another, authorities said on Sunday, with an Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs source identifying both as Italian nationals. “Two foreigners were attacked by a shark in the northern Marsa Alam area, which led to the injury of one and the death of the other,” the Egyptian Ministry of Environment said in a statement. A source at the Italian foreign ministry said that the man killed was a 48-year-old resident of Rome. The injured man was 69 years old. They were both taken to hospital in Port Ghalib, about 50km north
The foreign ministers of Germany, France and Poland on Tuesday expressed concern about “the political crisis” in Georgia, two days after Mikheil Kavelashvili was formally inaugurated as president of the South Caucasus nation, cementing the ruling party’s grip in what the opposition calls a blow to the country’s EU aspirations and a victory for former imperial ruler Russia. “We strongly condemn last week’s violence against peaceful protesters, media and opposition leaders, and recall Georgian authorities’ responsibility to respect human rights and protect fundamental freedoms, including the freedom to assembly and media freedom,” the three ministers wrote in a joint statement. In reaction
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