Unexploded Ordnance: 4 boys killed in Afghanistan

FOUR boys have been killed and six wounded in eastern Afghanistan when a mortar shell exploded as they played with it.

The children, all under 14, were struck by the device in the town of Gardez, Paktya province intelligence chief Ghulam Dastagir Rostumyar said.

Two of the six wounded were in a critical condition and had been sent to the capital Kabul for treatment, provincial public health chief Mohammad Nadir said.

There are thousands of rounds of unexploded ordnance, including landmines and mortars, left over from almost three decades of war and violence in Afghanistan that started with the 1979 invasion by the Soviet Union.