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Kabul, Afghanistan – As sunset approached, Latifah was busy preparing food for her family when she heard a loud echo through the sky breaking the fast.
The sound shook the nine and six daughters who were returning from school that day. The 28-year-old tried to calm down to see what happened in a hurry from the window. He feared the worst, as Dasht-e-Barchi, a Shiite district in Kabul where he lives, has repeatedly targeted the ISIL (ISIS) armed group in recent years.
As he reached through the window, he heard another explosion – it seemed to be closer than the last. Then came the noisiest boom. The closeness of the three explosions terrified him. Her mud house was a few hundred yards from Syed Al-Shuhada school when the girls ’school was taking high school classes.
Looking out the window, he saw people running to help the wounded and dead and to help smoke, describing it as “the day of judgment has come.”
The death toll rose to 58, including school girls, with more than 100 others injured.
“My heart broke. What threat can it pose to teenage girls for anyone, ”she asked, sitting a few feet from an abandoned school set of books, notes, shoes and backpacks, which residents piled up as a sign of what the Saturday afternoon bombing really aimed at: education.
By Sunday morning, however, the sadness had sparked anger.
More than 12 hours after the bombing at 4.30pm on Saturday, the Taliban did not take any troops. It was the second attack on Afghan students in many weeks. Prior to Saturday’s bombing, a car bomb on April 30 was near an inn where students were staying in the eastern province of Logar. That attack was also left unclaimed.
The government has blamed the lack of security
Al Jazeera residents spoke on Sunday that the government has not done enough to secure Dasht-e-Barchi, even though it has been repeatedly attacked by forces claiming ISIL loyalty.
Mohammad Ehsan Haidari, who works in a workshop near the scene of the blast, said he was appalled by the slow response from police and intelligence forces.
“I called the police at 4:33 pm, they told me they were aware of what was going on and that they would send cars soon.”
Haidari and other residents in the area said officials needed at least an hour to get to the scene.
He didn’t wait for the police, rushed to the scene of the first explosion, believed it was an improvised explosive device (IED) and rushed an injured girl to a nearby hospital. He says he saw five dead: three girls, an old man and a teenager.
“He was lying there unconscious; he could not have been more than 14 years old. I took it and threw it in the car, ”the 26-year-old told Al Jazeera.
However, when other explosions occurred — on both sides of the school and on the road leading to it — and the crowd was going to help the victims, it was difficult to maneuver from the dirt road leading to the main street.
“Crowds grew, everyone took what they could to their homes or hospitals,” Haida said. Meanwhile, he and other neighbors said police and even an ambulance arrived late.
Neighbors say the car, which is believed to be the latest blast, was parked outside the school for several hours.
Even more outraged, residents said the two police headquarters were just a few miles from the school.
Commander Naser Naderi of 13 headquarters in the police district defended the police response. “The District Police did their job as best they could.”
When police, intelligence, and ambulances arrived, they became the target of popular outrage.
A 20-year-old man who did not want to be named said people were trying to prevent him from breaking the windows of ambulances, telling police and intelligence officials to confront him.
Hazaras targeting
Some people said the attack was on Hazara, a long-persecuted group in Afghanistan, who accused President Ashraf Ghani of accusing him of targeting their community for years.
“Why weren’t Ghani’s children, they’re not here either,” one woman said through tears as many of Afghanistan’s top officials don’t live in the country.
Latifah, the mother of two young girls, said anyone behind the attack had achieved her reason – to keep the children out of school.
“My girls cried all night last night, waking up saying, ‘Don’t send us to school, you’re going to die at school.’
Mirwais, a self-employed electrician, came to the Emergency Hospital at the Kabul shopping center to donate blood. The 36-year-old man was at least one of 100 people after reading about the need for plasma in a Facebook group on Sunday.
He believes the “enemies of Afghanistan’s national unity” are to blame for the attack, but he believes the government cannot even absolve at least part of the blame.
Spectators are close to multiple explosions at a girls’ school in Dasht-e-Barchi on Saturday [Wakil Kohsar/AFP]
Mirwais says about the peace talks and the uncertainty surrounding the withdrawal of foreign forces in September, the heads of government are “busy with their wheels and deals, not concerned with the people of Afghanistan, but maintaining their status.”
“They are among the poorest people, Barchin, living a simple life, and yet what they need to look at still no one pays attention to,” he told Al Jazeera.
He also made the usual criticism of the current political elites, namely that many of their families are abroad. “What they care about is that their kids aren’t here and when things go wrong they can fly with their second passport on their own.”
Many residents, who shouted loudly against the government and security forces, did not want to give their name to the media because their community has been constantly threatened mainly by forces demanding loyalty to ISIL. Members of the Hazara ethnic group in Kabul also attended the Ashoura memorial and aimed at academic institutions.
Saturday’s bombing came just days after the bombing of a nearby maternity hospital, killing at least 24 people, including new mothers.
Many of the young people gathered believed that if the government could not protect them: “We will protect ourselves.”
However, warning of the outbreak of civil war after the withdrawal of U.S.-led foreign forces on September 11, the solution could frighten Afghan authorities as they are tired of ethnic militias appearing in the country in a repeat of the 1990s civil war. .
Latifah says young people will continue to pay the price unless something is done to secure Dasht-e-Barchi.
“Yesterday, education really died in Afghanistan.”
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