Massacre of Hazara Girls and Boys at Kaj Educational Center.

Today is Monday, October 3, 2022. I am sitting in my brother’s house in Pul-e-Khoshk, Dasht-e-Barchi, and the strange feeling from the recent incident has compelled me to document these events. I am talking about the suicide attack at the Kaj Educational Center.

On Friday morning at 6 AM, I woke up at my friend Bashir Momeni’s house. Without waking anyone else, I left the house and headed towards Pul-e-Khoshk. On the way, the name “Kaj” at the beginning of an alley caught my attention. I remembered the Kaj Educational Center, where three years ago, every morning, I saw many boys and girls hurrying there as I passed by the hospital station on my way home. I thought to myself, maybe this is another branch of Kaj, or perhaps the same branch has moved here. I passed the alley and a bit further down, I passed Imam Reza Alley and went to the “Paris Mazar” bathhouse. I don’t remember exactly when I left the bathhouse and reached my brother’s house, but it was around 7:30 AM. My sister asked, “They say there has been an attack on the Kaj course?” I replied, “On my way here, it was very quiet. Maybe I came early and the students hadn’t arrived yet.”

A little later, I called a colleague, but she didn’t answer. We were supposed to go somewhere together. About twenty minutes later, she called back and said her sister was at the Kaj course. There had been a suicide attack there. Her sister was physically fine, but her mental state was terrible, and she was constantly screaming. I then realized that the Kaj sign I saw was different from the Kaj Educational Center, which was the same place I saw every day three years ago and had now moved a few alleys away, near the 13th district.

What I am writing is the eyewitness account of a friend: My mother said she heard an explosion and asked me to check where it was. I called Benazir, but her voice was unclear, just screams, and then the phone cut off. I told my mother, who was even more frantic and worried than I was. We both ran towards the course. I saw things I could never have imagined. I saw poor children with foam coming out of their mouths, one had bitten his tongue and died like that. I saw one whose leg was twisted backward, severed limbs, girls whose clothes were completely burned off and were naked. Some girls and boys were trying to climb over the wall, which had barbed wire, to escape into the alley. My mother said many things to the Taliban, she was angry and said whatever she wanted. The Taliban were in their Rangers at the scene, but they just smirked in response to the cries and screams of the girls and boys. This was what burned my heart more than anything else.