THE United Nations Organization confirmed on Thursday that it had received credible information that dozens of civilians, including women and children, had been killed in airstrikes launched earlier this week by Pakistan in the province of Paktika Afghanistan.

The UN said Tuesday’s airstrikes violated international law and called for an investigation.

“International law obliges armed forces to take the necessary precautions to prevent the risk of harm to civilians, distinguishing between civilians and combatants in their operations,” the United Nations Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said.

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) also reported that at least 20 children were killed in the attack.

“Children are not and should never be targeted,” Sanjay Wijesekera, the head of UNICEF’s South Asia directorate, said via X.

The de facto government of Afghanistan announced that at least 46 civilians were killed in the airstrikes. Most of the victims, according to its spokesman, were Pakistani refugees from the bordering, formerly autonomous, tribal region of Waziristan (northwest).

Kabul has summoned Pakistan’s top diplomat to Afghanistan to serve a “protest” and said it has warned the Pakistani government not to cross the “red line” of protecting Afghan territory and that such “irresponsible actions” will have consequences, according to the Taliban’s foreign ministry.

The other side supports that the airstrikes were aimed at hideouts of the extremists of the Taliban Movement in Pakistan (TTP). This is an organization that is blamed for countless bloody attacks on Pakistani soil.

Islamabad claims that the KPT is planning attacks on Afghan soil and that its members are crossing the porous border to carry them out on Pakistani soil. Kabul denies sheltering members of the movement.

On Saturday, 16 Pakistani soldiers were killed in an attack on their base, claimed by the Pakistani Taliban, in an area near the border with Afghanistan, authorities said.