UN condemns bomb attack on election workers

The United Nations has expressed outrage over Wednesday’s bomb attack against staff members of the Secretariat of the Joint Electoral Management Body (JEMB) in Ghazni province, southwest of the Afghan capital Kabul, which killed one JEMB staff member and a voter who had come to register. Seven others were injured in the attack, including two seriously. "The Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG), Jean Arnault condemns in the strongest terms this callous attack," Manoel de Almeida e Silva, a spokesman for the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), said on Thursday. The SRSG conveyed his condolences and expressed his sympathy to the families, friends, and colleagues of the deceased, he said, wishing those who had been wounded a swift recovery. The JEMB staff members had been working to register Afghan voters in the southwest for this autumn's upcoming national elections. According to UNAMA, at 8:00 am local time on Wednesday (28 July) an explosive device went off at a registration site located in a mosque in the Belal Kheil village, Andar district of Ghazni. Two JEMB staff members seriously injured in the blast had been medically evacuated by a UN helicopter to the Bagram military hospital, the UNAMA official said, while those suffering lighter injuries were being treated locally. "Wednesday’s bomb explosion did not have any impact on the work of registration sites," he told IRIN, noting that all sites throughout Ghazni province - except the one damaged in Wednesday's attack - were continuing to operate. More than 8.5 million Afghans have registered to vote in the upcoming elections scheduled for October, of whom 58.9 percent were men and 41.1 percent were women.