At least 50 children were among more than 100 people wounded on Monday when the Taliban detonated a powerful car bomb in Kabul, officials said, the latest deadly attack in one of the most dangerous countries in the world to be a child.
Save the Children led international condemnation of the blast targeting a defence ministry building, which sent a plume of smoke into the air during rush hour and shook buildings nearly two kilometres away.
It was followed by gunmen storming a nearby building and triggering a gun battle with special forces in the Puli Mahmood Khan neighbourhood of the Afghan capital.
Officials said all five attackers have been killed and a clearing operation is ongoing.
At least three people have been killed, including one child, and 116 wounded, according to the health ministry, though that figure is expected to change once the clearing operation has been completed.
Among the wounded were 50 children, the education ministry said in a statement, adding that most had been hurt by flying glass and were in stable condition.
Some social media images purportedly taken at a hospital showed wounded, stunned children in school uniforms, still clutching books as they arrived for treatment.
In its statement, the education ministry said five schools had been partially damaged, and asked "all sides involved in fighting to guarantee the safety of students, teachers, education workers and schools".
Such an attack was "utterly deplorable", Save the Children said in a statement, warning that "Children's smaller bodies sustain more serious injuries than adults" and that the trauma of such attacks can stay with them for years to come.
The Taliban claimed the attack, which came just two days after the insurgents began a seventh round of talks with the US in Qatar as Washington eyes a breakthrough before Afghanistan's September presidential election.
"We were sitting inside the office when the world turned upside down on us," said Zaher Usman, an employee at a branch of the culture ministry, which he said stands just 150 metres from the blast.