KATHMANDU, June 21 (Xinhua)–The Nepalese government has decided to dispatch an aircraft to Afghanistan to bring home the remains of 12 Nepalese nationals killed in the Kabul suicide bombing on Monday.
A meeting of Prime Minister K.P Sharma Oli and the cabinet ministers held on Tuesday morning decided to send the national flag carrier Nepal Airlines to Kabul to bring the mortal remains, Prime Minister K.P Sharma Oli’s Press Advisor Pramod Dahal told Xinhua.
Deputy Prime Minister Kamal Thapa, who is also in charge of foreign affairs, said that the government has made necessary preparations to send the aircraft to Kabul to bring home the injured and remains of the Nepalese killed in the barbaric terrorist attack.
The ill-fated Nepalese nationals were working as security guards with the Kabul-based Canadian Embassy, who were hired by Sabre International, a British security consultancy firm. Seven Nepalese security guards working with Canadian embassy were also injured in the incident.
Fourteen security guards (12 Nepalese and two Indians) were killed and nine people were injured after a suicide bomber struck a minibus in the Afghan capital of Kabul on Monday morning.
One suicide bomber had approached and targeted a mini bus carrying personnel of a foreign company at around 05:40 a.m. local time in Banahi area along Pul-e-Charkhi road which is also called Jalalabad road in eastern part of the city.
Meanwhile, Acting Ambassador at the Islamabad-based Nepalese Embassy Tirtha Raj Aryal has reached the Afghan Capital Kabul to initiate process to bring home the mortal remains of the Nepalese nationals. Nepal doesn’t have diplomatic mission in Kabul and the Islamabad-based embassy is concurrently accredited to Afghanistan.
Bharat Raj Paudyal, a spokesman at the Nepalese Ministry of Foreign Affairs told Xinhua that all the 12 Nepalese killed in the incident have been identified.
Initially, the Afghan interior ministry had stated that 14 killed in the incident were Nepalese, however, during verification it was revealed that two were Indian nationals.