The United Nations yesterday said it has documented dozens of civilian casualties in strikes on Afghanistan a day earlier, which Taliban officials blamed on neighbouring Pakistan.

Hundreds of people have been killed since the two neighbours went to war in late February, according to UN figures, although the fighting has largely abated in recent weeks.

An uptick in violence in Afghanistan’s eastern Kunar province on Monday killed seven civilians and wounded 85 others, a health official said.

The UN’s mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said it had recorded “tens of civilians killed or injured” in strikes that hit a university and other parts of the provincial capital Asadabad.

Afghanistan’s foreign ministry called the attacks a “clear breach of the country’s territorial integrity” and summoned Pakistan’s charge d’affaires in Kabul.

Pakistan’s information ministry earlier denied attacking residential areas or the university, calling any such claim a “blatant lie”.

Relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan have been fraught since Taliban officials took power in Kabul for a second time in 2021.