Ten girls aged between nine and 13 were killed by an explosion as they gathered firewood outside their village in Nangarhar province in eastern Afghanistan today.
Police said they believed a mine that had been laid years ago was triggered as the girls walked through a field.
Two other girls were seriously wounded. Such was the force of the blast that only four bodies could be recognised, a tribal elder told the BBC. One other mine was found nearby.
Afghanistan remains one of the most heavily landmined countries in the world despite years of clearance. Many mines were left in rural areas in the Nineties and are discovered only when they are set off accidentally.
At least 30 people were injured today and a suicide bomber died when a car bomb exploded outside a compound housing a US military contractor in the capital Kabul.
Those wounded included Americans, Afghans and South Africans, including the American director of the company.
The bomb blew apart an exterior wall. The blast on the outskirts of the city shook windows more than a mile away in the city centre.
A security officer for Contrack, a company that builds facilities for military bases, said a suicide attacker drove a vehicle packed with explosives up to the wall of the compound and detonated the bomb.
Interior ministry spokesman Najibullah Danish said that at least one person was killed in the attack. The Taliban claimed it carried out the bombing.
