An 8-year-old child was killed on Sunday in a blast in Kabul. He was collecting money from motorists after smoking pecan for them as a good omen to ward off evil and ill fortune.

Surab, 8, worked on Kabul streets with two brothers every day. Sometimes they sold bubble gum.

His mother said she sent her son from Parwan to Kabul to work to win bread for their family as they are faced with a poor economic condition.

One shopkeeper, Abdul Sami, said Suhrab borrowed 10 Afs from him hours before his death on that day.

“A few minutes before the incident he brought a kite for me and asked me to keep it so that he could take it home in the evening,” Sami said.

Baryalai, Suhrab’s younger brother, said he was there when the blast occurred and his brother lost his life. He said they usually went to their sister’s house to spend the night. 

“When the blast happened, I went forward. My cousin came and asked me to go home. When I went home, I found my brother dead,” Suhrab’s brother explained.

“I am crippled. I cannot work,” said Agha Saeeb, Suhrab’s father.

“I didn’t see him for two weeks. We were talking on the phone and he used to say that he misses me,” said Anis Gul, Suhrab’s mother.

The blast killed four people and wounded six more, two of which were wounded severely, sources say.

Four of those wounded include a mother and daughter and two children, all civilians. A video of the two children crying following the blast with their grandmother lying on the ground sparked many reactions on social media and among politicians and activists.

Sanawbar, whose mother and sister were wounded in the explosion, lost her father four years ago. She said her mother and her 13-year-old sister were selling tissue papers and other small stuff on the streets to earn some money.

“All expenses from home were on my mother… My mother and sister have been wounded,” Sanawbar said.

Sanawbar’s younger brother, Polad, who is a child, witnessed the incident in which his mother and sister were wounded.

The two children, Aisha and Malika, were wounded when they were walking with their grandmother on the street.

Their grandfather said that his wife was suffering from diabetes and one of her legs had been amputated following the blast.

This is not the first time that civilians have been killed and wounded in such blasts.

Employees of the Ministry of Interior Affairs were the target of the attack that happened in the Baraki roundabout. Three of them were killed.

In a reaction to recent attacks, US Chargé d’Affaires Ross Wilson said: “Each day without peace, Afghans live in fear of violence that has claimed thousands of civilian deaths over the past year.  We mourn with victims’ families and are saddened by the lost opportunities to build a better future for Afghanistan.”

“We deplore the targeting of civilians and urge an immediate return to peace negotiations,” he said.