Afghans begin burying female students killed in school blasts
Officials blame Taliban, which denies carrying out attacks that left over 50 people dead, mostly girls
Dozens of young girls were being buried yesterday at a desolate hilltop cemetery in Kabul, a day after a secondary school was targeted in the bloodiest attack in Afghanistan in over a year.
A series of blasts outside the school during a peak holiday shopping period killed more than 50 people, mostly female students, and wounded over 100 in Dasht-e-Barchi, a west Kabul suburb populated mostly by Hazara Shiites.
The government blamed the Taliban, but the insurgents denied responsibility and issued a statement saying the nation needed to “safeguard and look after educational centres and institutions”.
Saturday’s blasts came as the United States military continues to pull out its last 2,500 troops from the country despite the faltering peace efforts between the Taliban and Afghan government to end a decades-long war.
Interior Ministry spokesman Tareq Arian said a car bomb detonated had been in front of the Sayed Al-Shuhada girls school on Saturday. When the students rushed out in panic, two more devices exploded.
Residents were shopping ahead of this week’s Eid al-Fitr holiday, which marks the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, when the blasts occurred.
Yesterday, relatives began burying the dead at a hilltop site known as “Martyrs Cemetery”, where victims of attacks against the Hazara community are laid to rest.
Hazaras are Shiite Muslims and considered heretics by extremist Sunnis.
Sunni Muslims make up most of the Afghan population.
“I rushed to the scene (after the blasts) and found myself in the middle of bodies, their hands and heads cut off and bones smashed,” said Mohammad Taqi, a resident of Dasht-e-Barchi, whose two daughters were students at the school but had escaped the attack.
“All of them were girls. Their bodies piled on top of each other.”
Afghan officials including President Ashraf Ghani blamed the Taliban.
“This savage group does not have the power to confront security forces on the battlefield, and instead targets with brutality and barbarism public facilities and the girls’ school,” Ghani said.
The Taliban denied involvement and insisted they had not carried out attacks in Kabul since February last year, when they signed a deal with the US that paved the way for peace talks and withdrawal of US troops.