UNITED NATIONS -- UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) strongly condemned the two deadly attacks which killed 10 boys and injured at least 15 other civilians, including schoolchildren, in the east of the country on Monday.

"Any such violence is unacceptable, but especially when it involves civilians and even more so when it involves children," Martin Nesirky, spokesperson for UN chief Ban Ki-moon, said at the daily briefing, quoting Jan Kubis, Ban's Special Representative for Afghanistan and head of UNAMA.

According to UNAMA, in the first attack, a suicide bomber riding a motorcycle detonated his explosives as a convoy of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) was passing a nearby boys' high school in Gardez, the capital of Paktya province.

The explosion. Two ISAF soldiers and an Afghan police officer were also killed in the blast.

In the city of Mihtarlam, the capital of Laghman province, an improvised explosive device was detonated on a roadside, reportedly killing seven members of one family, including four women and two children.

"In the past two weeks, conflict-related violence has killed 125 Afghan civilians and wounded 287, about a 24 percent increase in total civilian casualties compared to the same period last year, " said Nesirky.

"The UN Mission stresses once again that the use of suicide attacks and improvised explosive devices against civilians must stop. It notes that the indiscriminate use of such attacks is in contravention of humanitarian law and may amount to war crimes," he said.

"UNAMA extends its condolences to the families of all of those killed in the attacks and wishes a speedy recovery for the injured, " said a news release issued by UNAMA.

The attacks demonstrate once again that anti-government elements "knowingly target areas frequented by civilians," it stated.

Anti-government elements were responsible for 84 percent of all civilian casualties during the past two weeks, it added.