The incident occurred while the children were returning home from school after finishing their classes.
Two school going children were killed in a drone strike in Shah Tangi area of Mamund tehsil in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa’s Bajaur district on Thursday, police said.
Deputy Superintendent of Police Niaz Muhammad confirmed the incident and said the injured were immediately rushed to hospital; However, both children succumbed to their injuries along the way.
According to local sources, the incident took place while the children were returning home from school after finishing their classes.
Read: Three injured in terrorist drone attack on cricket ground in Bajaur, KP
The deceased were identified as 10-year-old Hassan, son of Israr, and a 12-year-old boy, son of local religious scholar Maulana Mumtaz.
The incident sparked panic in the area, with residents strongly condemning the strike and demanding a transparent investigation.
Sources said grief gripped the affected families while a large number of local residents gathered at the spot after the incident.
The origin of the quadcopter and those responsible for the attack have not yet been established.
Earlier this month, at least three people were injured in a terrorist drone attack on a cricket ground in the same Mamund area.
Last month, while addressing a jirga, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Sohail Afridi condemned the drone strikes, as the meeting rejected what he described as the recurring pattern of civilian deaths being dismissed as mistakes.
The jirga, which showed unusual political unity and included both Treasury and opposition lawmakers representing tribal districts, condemned the continued drone attacks in the region and decided to convene a series of meetings on the issue.
Addressing the gathering, the Chief Minister said civilian deaths caused by both terrorism and drone strikes were unacceptable.
“People in tribal areas cannot be forced to pay double the price for the way they live,” he said. “Neither terrorism nor civilian deaths in drone attacks can be justified.”
Also read: KP jirga rejects drone attacks, announces emergency assembly session
“Despite modern technology, the continued loss of innocent lives due to so-called mistakes is unacceptable under any circumstances,” Gandapur added. “Apologies cannot compensate for the lives lost. The damage is irreparable.”
Earlier this month, following public outrage in his constituency over drone strikes, the Prime Minister hinted at introducing legislation to criminalize collateral damage resulting from such incidents.
“We held a meeting to draft a law against drone attacks, but ‘they’ have protected themselves in the Constitution against drone attacks… However, we can legislate against collateral damage,” he said during a session of the KP Assembly convened to discuss the matter.
The prime minister alleged that every time he protested against a drone attack, he received a message saying that “they” understood the situation and were sorry, without giving further details.
Later, a large Loya Jirga of tribal elders agreed to form a smaller representative jirga to negotiate with the federal government and other stakeholders on behalf of the people of the merged districts of KP.
