The death toll from a Pakistani airstrike on a rehabilitation centre in the Afghan border region has risen to 269, with distraught families demanding answers and British aid agencies piling pressure on the government to launch an independent investigation. The strike, which occurred in the early hours of Tuesday, levelled the building in Khost province, a facility that housed people with disabilities and recovering addicts. Almost all of the victims were believed to be Afghan civilians.

Local officials confirmed that the centre was struck by at least two Pakistani military jets. Eyewitnesses described scenes of chaos: bodies buried under rubble, survivors screaming for help, and medical teams overwhelmed by the scale of the disaster. "We were sleeping. Then the whole world turned upside down," said one survivor, a young man who lost both legs in the blast. "Why did they bomb us? We are not soldiers. We are sick people."

Pakistan has not commented on the specific incident, but its military routinely conducts operations along the porous border, targeting what it calls "militant hideouts." However, this attack has drawn sharp condemnation from human rights groups and UK-based aid charities. Action Against Hunger, Oxfam, and Save the Children have issued a joint statement calling for a full and transparent inquiry by the Pakistani government, with international observers. They questioned how a facility clearly marked as a rehabilitation centre could have been mistaken for a militant target.

"If this was a mistake, it is a catastrophic one that demands accountability," said a spokesperson for a major UK charity. "The victims’ families deserve the truth. They need to know that their loved ones’ lives mattered, that this was not collateral damage from a distant war."

For the families, the wait for answers has been agonising. Many have gathered outside the wrecked building, clutching photographs of missing relatives. "My son was in there getting treatment for his drug addiction. He was 22 years old. He wanted to come home," said a mother from a nearby village, her voice breaking. "Now I have nothing. I want the world to see what happened here."

The UK government has yet to comment on the airstrike, but a Foreign Office source indicated that officials are "monitoring the situation closely." Opposition MPs have demanded that the Foreign Secretary raise the matter with Pakistan, arguing that British aid money that goes to the region through international bodies must not be associated with such attacks.

This tragedy lays bare the deep human cost of the ongoing conflict on the border. For the families, there is no comfort in diplomatic silence. They want truth. They want justice. They want a reckoning.

In the wreckage of the centre, volunteers continue to search for bodies. The number of dead is expected to rise. As the sun sets over the rubble, the world is asked to remember: these were not just numbers. They were people who had already suffered enough.