Landmine Blast Kills 19 in Afghanistan

A landmine killed at least nine children and 10 adults in Afghanistan's southern province of Helmand, officials said Sunday.

The group of civilians killed in the blast were traveling in a passenger vehicle that hit a mine in the agricultural region of Marjah, according to independent news agency Pajhwok.

Update : Children and women are among 14 killed and 5 wounded in a roadside blast in southern #Helmand province. #Afghanistan

— Pajhwok Afghan News (@pajhwok) June 20, 2015

All of the children killed in the blast were believed to be under the age of five, Reuters has reported.

Five more unidentified individuals were reportedly wounded in the blast.

Local authorities have blamed the Taliban for the attack, though no group has claimed responsibility.

The Taliban is widely known to use roadside bombs, but rarely claims responsibility for blasts that kill large numbers of civilians.

In Afghanistan, there are an estimated 5,000 sites potentially riddled with mines, which are a regular cause of civilian deaths. According to the Mine Action Coordination Center of Afghanistan, over 50 percent of mine victims are children – most are either killed or maimed by the hidden weapons.

In 2013, the war-torn country had the highest rate of mine deaths and injuries in the world. According to a report released by the International Campaign to Ban Landmines and Cluster Munition Coalition (ICBL-CMC), Afghanistan also had the highest number of child deaths from landmines in the world in 2013. The ICBL-CMC reported that mines killed 487 Afghan children in 2014 – half of the world's total child mine victims for that year.

In total, over 10,000 civilians died in Afghanistan's ongoing civil war in 2014, according to a recent United Nations report.

“In 2014, (the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, UNMA) documented the highest number of civilian deaths and injuries in a single year since it began systematically recording civilian casualties in 2009,” the report stated.

Painting a bleak picture in the divided country, the report said civilian deaths increased by 22 percent between 2013 and 2014. The steady rise in civilian killings was attributed to “increased ground engagements” and the mushrooming use of heavy explosives such as mortars in civilian populated areas.