Grieving in Afghanistan
KABUL, Afghanistan — Grieving families buried their dead Sunday after a bombing at a girls’ school in the Afghan capital that killed 50 people, many of them pupils between 11 and 15.
The number of wounded in Saturday’s attack climbed to more than 100, said Interior Ministry spokesman Tariq Arian. In the western neighborhood of Dasht-e-Barchi, families buried their dead amid angry recriminations at a government they said has failed to protect them from repeated attacks in the mostly Shiite Muslim neighborhood.
“The government reacts after the incident, it doesn’t do anything before the incident,” said Mohammad Baqir Alizada, 41, who had gathered to bury his niece, Latifa, an 11th-grader at the Syed Al-Shahda school.
Three explosions outside the school entrance struck as students were leaving for the day, Arian said. The blasts targeted Afghanistan’s ethnic Hazaras, who dominate the neighborhood. Most Hazaras are Shiite Muslims. The Taliban denied responsibility, condemning the attack and the many deaths; no one has yet claimed the bombings.
The first explosion came from a vehicle packed with explosives, followed by two others, said Arian, adding that the death toll could still rise.
In a capital rattled by relentless bombings, Saturday’s attack was among the worst. Criticism has mounted over lack of security and growing fears of even more violence as the U.S. and NATO complete their withdrawal from Afghanistan.
At Vatican City, in his traditional Sunday remarks to the faithful in St. Peter’s Square, Pope Francis cited the bombing. “Let us pray for the victims of the terrorist attack in Kabul, an inhumane action that struck so many girls as they were coming out of school,” he said. The pontiff added: “May God give Afghanistan peace.”
The Dasht-e-Barchi area has been hit by several incidents of violence targeting minority Shiites and most often claimed by the Islamic State affiliate operating in the country.
In the same neighborhood in 2018, a school bombing killed 34 people, mostly students. In September 2018, a wrestling club was attacked, killing 24 people and in May 2020 a maternity hospital was brutally attacked, killing 24 people, including pregnant women and infants. And in October 2020, the Kawsare-Danish tutoring center was attacked, killing 30 people.
Most of the attacks were claimed by the Islamic State affiliate. The radical Sunni Muslim group has declared war on Afghanistan’s Shiites.
Soon after the bombing, angry crowds attacked ambulances and even beat health workers as they tried to evacuate the wounded, Health Ministry spokesman Ghulam Dastigar Nazari said. He had implored residents to cooperate and allow ambulances free access.
Arian, the Interior Ministry spokesman, blamed the attack on the Taliban despite their denials.
Bloodied backpacks and schools books lay strewn outside the school. In the morning, boys attend classes in the sprawling school compound, and in the afternoon it’s girls’ turn.
On Sunday, Hazara leaders from Dasht-e- Barchi met to express their frustration with the government failure to protect ethnic Hazaras, deciding to cobble together a protection force of their own from their community.
The force would be deployed outside schools, mosques and public facilities and would cooperate with government security forces. The intention is to supplement the local forces, said Parliamentarian Ghulam Hussein Naseri.
The meeting participants decided “there is not any other way, except for people themselves to provide their own security alongside of the security forces,” said Naseri, who added that the government should provide the local Hazaras with weapons.
Naseri said Hazaras have been attacked in their schools and their mosques, and “it is their right to be upset. How many more families lose their loved ones? How many more attacks against this minority has to occur in this part of the city before something is done?”