More than 400 people died in a Kabul hospital after a Pakistani airstrike, according to Afghanistan.

More than 400 people were killed Monday night in a Pakistani strike on a drug hospital in Kabul, Afghan authorities announced Tuesday, the deadliest attack by far in the conflict that has pitted the two neighbors against each other for months.

"The death toll is not final, search operations are continuing but we have around 400 dead and more than 200 injured," said Health Ministry spokesman Sharafat Zaman at a press conference in the ravaged medical center.

The spokesman for the Ministry of the Interior, Abdul Mateen Qani, gave the figure of 408 dead and 265 injured during the same press briefing.

This toll could not be immediately verified by an independent source, but AFP journalists saw at least 30 bodies overnight, plus 65 more extracted from the rubble on Tuesday.

At least three bodies have been received at the hospital of the Italian NGO Emergency in the Afghan capital and 27 wounded are being treated there, its director in Afghanistan, Dejan Panic, told AFP, explaining that the toll could be very high because the center was hosting "a very large number of patients" suffering from addiction.

Pakistan bombed the Afghan capital on Monday evening, claiming to have struck "military and terrorist targets." "This rehabilitation center was targeted in violation of the Geneva Conventions and international law," Mr. Zaman denounced.

Afghan authorities have called on families to accept that their slain relatives be buried in a common grave to commemorate "that they were killed during the month of Ramadan," Mohammed Omari, Deputy Interior Minister.

India, which has very strained relations with Pakistan, denounced on X "a barbaric attack".

China on Tuesday called on Afghanistan and Pakistan to exercise restraint and affirmed its commitment to working towards de-escalation.

"I'm looking for my brother"

Gathered on Tuesday in front of this hospital which, according to medical sources speaking to AFP, was treating between 2,000 and 3,000 drug addicts, more than a hundred people are desperately trying to get news of their loved ones.

"I've been here since last night. I'm looking for my brother but I can't find him. What can I do? I have no words," said Habibullah Kabulbai, 55, weeping. His younger brother, Nawroz, had been admitted five days earlier.

"We are helpless, this is not just happening to me but to all of Afghanistan," he adds, surrounded by other families seeking answers.

In one of the buildings of this addiction treatment center, the roof has collapsed, chairs, blankets and pieces of hospital beds, as well as human remains were visible Tuesday in the ruins blackened by the fire that followed the bombing.

The Pakistani strikes took place on Monday around 9:00 PM local time (4:30 PM GMT), causing panic among many residents.

"I heard a fighter jet flying over us. Military units nearby fired at the plane. It dropped bombs and a fire broke out," one of the guards at the affected medical center, Omid Stanikzai, told AFP.

"Call for de-escalation"

Afghanistan and Pakistan have been in conflict for months, with Islamabad accusing its neighbor of harboring fighters from the Pakistani Taliban movement (TTP) who have claimed responsibility for deadly attacks on Pakistani soil, which Afghan authorities deny.

After an escalation in October that left dozens dead, the clashes had calmed down but never stopped.

But they resumed with intensity on February 26 after Pakistani strikes, with Islamabad speaking the next day of "open war" and striking Kabul in the aftermath.

According to the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), 75 Afghan civilians were killed between February 26 and March 13. More than 115,000 families have been displaced in eastern and southern provinces. Pakistan has also reported civilian deaths.

"Appalled by reports of Pakistani strikes in Afghanistan. My condolences," wrote UN Special Rapporteur for Afghanistan Richard Bennett on X, calling on the parties "to de-escalate and protect civilians and sites such as hospitals."

A Chinese envoy had visited Afghanistan and Pakistan between March 7 and 14 to mediate and call for an immediate ceasefire, Beijing announced Monday before the strike.

"The diplomatic efforts of recent months have failed and the Gulf countries are now preoccupied with their own war, China has had little success," said Michael Kugelman, an expert at the Atlantic Council international affairs think tank.

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) warned this week that "persistent instability (would push) millions of people into even greater hunger" in Afghanistan.