Families grieve as toll rises to 50 in school attack
KABUL — Devastated families buried their dead Sunday as the toll from a horrific bombing at a girls’ school in the Afghan capital reached 50 people, many of them students between 11 and 15 years old.
The number of wounded in Saturday’s attack in Kabul climbed to more than 100, said Interior Ministry spokesman Tariq Arian. In the western neighborhood of DashteBarchi, 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 buried his niece, Latifa, a student the Syed Al
Shahda school.
Three explosions outside the school entrance struck as students were leaving for the day, said Arian. The blasts targeted Afghanistan’s ethnic Hazaras who dominate the DashteBarchi neighborhood, where the bombings occurred. Most Hazaras are Shiite Muslims. The Taliban denied responsibility, condemning the attack and the many deaths.
The first explosion came from a vehicle packed with explosives, followed by two others, said Arian, adding that the toll could still rise.
In the 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 final military withdrawal from Afghanistan.
At Vatican City, in his tradi
tional Sunday remarks to 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 DashteBarchi 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. No
one has yet claimed Saturday’s bombings.
On Sunday, leaders from DashteBarchi met to express their frustration with the government failure to protect ethnic Hazaras, deciding to assemble a protection force of their own from among the Hazara 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 that “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 local Hazaras with weapons.