Quetta, Apr 14 (AP) Three children were killed on Friday while playing with an unexploded bomb at an abandoned house in southwestern Pakistan, near the Afghan border, police said.

According to police official Shabir Ahmed, the explosion took place in the border town of Chaman in Pakistan's Baluchistan province, some 150 kilometres (90 miles) from the provincial capital of Quetta.

Also Read | Baisakhi 2023 Wishes: Australian PM Anthony Albanese Extends Greetings to Sikh Community on Vaisakhi.

Afghan refugees had previously lived in the house but it was unclear how the bomb got there, he said. Police were investigating, Ahmed said.

Several children are killed every year by unexploded ordnance and land mines left from years of fighting and conflicts in the region and elsewhere in Pakistan.

Also Read | Myanmar: Drone Attack Kills Eight Children, Injures 31 in Sagaing Region.

Millions of Afghans fled to Pakistan during the 1979-1989 Soviet occupation of their country, creating one of the world's largest refugee populations.

According to a recently conducted UN-backed survey, 1.3 million registered Afghan refugees are still residing in Pakistan, where authorities often arrest those living without valid documents.

Scores of Afghan Taliban members had also stayed in the region before returning home after the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in August 2021. (AP)

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)