‘My sister had so many dreams, now she is buried’: Kabul mourns after blasts
Body after body, coffin after coffin, the weeping crowds carried them up to the graveyard.
The dead from three blasts that tore through crowds of mostly teenage girls as they left school on Saturday were so numerous that gravediggers had to set aside a separate corner of the cemetery to hold them.
The new area, on a hillside overlooking the Afghan capital Kabul, received 45 bodies on Sunday, local time. It has been called the graveyard of education martyrs.
By Sunday night, the overall death toll from the blasts outside Sayed ulShuhada High School in the western Kabul neighbourhood of Dasht-e-Barchi was about 70, with more than 160 wounded.
The vast majority were reported to be teenagers. Many were so badly disfigured by the blast that their families struggled to identify them.
When Rahmatullah Rafat first heard on Saturday that there had been a blast at the school, he immediately thought of his 17-year-old sister, Adela, who studied there.
‘‘There was no news about Adela. Every minute that passed without knowing about Adela, my fears grew about losing her,’’ he told the Telegraph.
The family rushed to the school, but could not find her.
‘‘My brothers and sisters searched for Adela in many hospitals and finally found a dead body that looked like hers. They were not sure. Her body was unrecognisable,’’ he said. ‘‘One of my sisters said that Adela had a scratch on her eyebrow. They found the scratch on her eyebrow.
‘‘Adela had so many dreams. When I think of her and her dreams, my heart aches and burns.
‘‘Now she is buried underground with her dreams and left us behind with broken hearts.’’
Officials said a car bomb was detonated near the school as students left classes. Minutes later two other bombs struck.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.
Ashraf Ghani, the president, blamed Taliban insurgents but the militant group denied involvement and said it was the Islamic State group.