A bomb blast on Sunday seriously damaged the Timo School, a school in the Afghan providence of Uruzgan that was built with funds raised by the parents of Dutch soldier Timo Smeehuijzen, who was killed in a suicide attack in Uruzgan in 2007.

A spokesperson for the Charity Save the Children told Radio Netherlands World (RNW) that no one was injured because the school, in the village of Shah Mansour, was closed for the summer holidays. Save the Children, which runs the school, said the damage was severe and the building can no longer be used.

According to Afghan press agency Pajhwok, there were bloodstains on the walls of one of the classrooms, which may indicate that the bomber was injured either placing the device or when it went off.

When RNW visited the school in July, residents of Shah Mansour, which lies a few kilometres north-east of the provincial capital Tarin Kowt, were requesting police protection. The villages in the middle of a heavily contested area where numerous rival groups are active. Save the children says it is not clear who carried out the attack.

After some delay, the school was finally opened in May 2010; the parents of Private Smeehuijzen wanted to do something positive for Afghanistan and raised over 200,000 euros to build a girls school in Uruzgan.
 

©Radio Netherlands World