An eight-year-old girl has been killed after insurgents used her in a bomb attack on police in southern Afghanistan, the government has said

The interior ministry said that insurgents gave the girl a package and told her to take it to a police vehicle, detonating it as she approached. The incident came a day after an attack on a hospital which killed at least 38 people in the east of the country. Dozens were injured. Elderly people, pregnant women and children were said to be among the casualties. Insurgents have recruited both adult women and recently male children to carry out suicide attacks.