By Ferdaws Daneshmand*
Upon entering Tamana’s room, she showed no reaction. She was immersed in her own world, lost in thought, with her head resting on her knees. I asked her father to talk to Tamana, but he shook his head and said slowly, “She is not in a condition to understand your words.” I wasn’t convinced. I sat beside her and spoke loudly, “Hello, dear Tamana, I am a reporter. Are you feeling alright?” She didn’t flinch and remained dazed and bewildered.
Tamana* is 18 years old. On May 8, 2021, she was injured in a suicide bombing of her school bus. The attack by an ISIS member targeted Tamana and her school friends because they are Hazara and Shia. Tamana’s father rushed to her bedside nearly five hours after the explosion. Tamana was in a coma at the Aliabad Hospital in Kabul. Her head, hands, and chest were wrapped in white bandages. Although the doctors had dressed her head wound, blood was still oozing out. Tamana was also bleeding from her nose and ears. The next day, though they controlled the bleeding and stitched her wounds. Tamana remained in a coma.
The doctors who treated her said that her injuries had caused serious damage to her brain. Two years later, Tamana’s condition remains virtually unchanged. Her father, Asad*, says, “My daughter constantly suffers from nervous attacks and memory loss.”
When the suicide bomber attacked her school bus, Tamana was in the eighth grade and was considered one of the top students in her class. Now, she struggles to interact with those outside her family. Her father notes that Tamana hasn’t opened a book in the last two years and has become very withdrawn: “She can’t read books, and when she talks, it makes me cry because she has no control over her words and says unrelated things.”
During the more than 30 minutes that I talked with Tamana’s father, Tamana only moved once when she got up to get a mobile phone. Then she raised the volume of an animated film so high that I couldn’t hear her father’s words. Her father gently and kindly asked her, “My dear, I’m having an interview with this reporter. Could you lower the volume a bit?” Softly, Tamana responded, “Is he the reporter?” This is the only sentence she uttered. Tamana’s family is deeply concerned about her condition, but due to financial difficulties, they cannot take their daughter abroad for treatment.
In Tamana’s family, only her father works. He’s a teacher. Both of her brothers are younger than Tamana, with the elder one in the eighth grade and the younger one in the sixth grade, while Tamara’s mother stays at home. Asad’s teaching income barely covers the family’s expenses and leaves little money for the long-term treatment of Tamana. In addition, there is a lack of sufficient facilities in government hospitals. As a result, Tamana’s neurological problems worsen with each passing day. “There were limited facilities, and there was no specialized doctor who could provide lasting treatment for my daughter. She is losing her consciousness more and more with each passing day,” Asad said.
Three times Asad has attempted to obtain her disability allowance by submitting his daughter’s documents to the Ministry of Martyrs and Disabled Affairs. Each time, the Taliban have rejected her disability appeal. Asad explains, “The first time I went to the Ministry in the spring of 1401 [2022], I submitted my application according to their guidelines to the ‘Deputy for Assistance and Service Delivery’ office. They gave me a written response and told me to take this written response and all the documents related to my daughter’s injury to the Head of the Martyrs and Disabled Affairs Department at the Ministry of Internal Affairs for verification. I did that too, but after a few weeks, my application was rejected in writing. They stated that my daughter’s hands and feet were fine, and she was not qualified to be disabled.”
Tamana is one of hundreds if not thousands of Hazara students who have been injured in ISIS attacks in recent years. The terror group and its affiliates in Afghanistan have repeatedly attacked Hazara and other religious minorities in their mosques, schools, and workplaces. One of the worst attacks occurred at the Kaaj education centre in Kabul in September 2022 when more than 50 Hazara girls were killed and more than 120 were wounded. Taliban authorities have repeatedly failed to take steps to protect and care for the victims and their families, a 2022 Human Rights Watch report said.
Another Hazara student grievously wounded in an ISIS attack is named Azizullah*. When I visited him and his family in western Kabul, it was like stepping into a different world. He can speak, but his hearing is damaged. Azizullah is always upset about not being able to hear properly, which has led to feelings of hopelessness and agitation. Like Tamana, his physical and emotional pain has turned dreams into ruins.
As he ask this reporter to repeat a question for the third time, tears fill his eyes. He swallows hard and slowly says, “How unfortunate I am.”
In mid-July 2018, Azizullah travelled from Daikondi province to Kabul with his elder brother to prepare for pre-university courses and the university entrance exam (Kankur). A month later, he was at the Maw’ood educational centre, located in a Hazara Shia-dominated neighbourhood of the capital city, when a suicide bomber attacked. More than 50 were killed and Azizullah sustained severe injuries to his head, ear, right leg, and genitals.
Although he, like other wounded students, was quickly taken to the hospital, his brother, Najibullah*, only found him after searching five hospitals. Azizullah was lying in a corner of a hallway of the Imam Zaman Hospital.
Najibullah’s presence led to doctors paying attention to Azizullah’s condition. He was taken to the operating room but remained in a coma for nine days. Azizullah says he doesn’t want to remember anything about the bombing because his entire life changed because of it: “The only thing I can’t forget is that I used to love studying and always sat in the front row of the class. I didn’t take breaks, and I wanted to become a doctor.”
Azizullah, along with some other wounded students from the incident, was sent to India for treatment by a charitable organization. His right leg and genitals showed some improvement but he completely lost the hearing in one ear. After this incident, he attempted to migrate to Europe twice, but both times he had to return, once from the border of Turkey and the other from the border of Iran. He says, “I have to find a way to go to a country other than Afghanistan, and I will never come back. Every time I decide to do something good like studying, doing business, and so on, something bad happens.”
Now, the boy who used to play the guitar and was a top student is lost when it comes to studies. He despises education so much that seeing a book makes him feel sick: “Sometimes I scold myself for wasting my time in a country that doesn’t value education. We have no future here, and we are trapped in misery.”
The Dasht-e-Barchi neighborhood in Kabul, which is home to a largely Hazara and Shia population, has also experienced numerous terrorist attacks on its educational institutions, is one of the bloodiest areas of the city, having witnessed numerous terrorist attacks on educational institutions, including the Maw’ood education centre (August 15, 2018), Kowsar-e-Danesh centre (October 24, 2020), Sayed Al-Shuhada school (May 8, 2021), Abdul Rahim Shaheed school (April 19, 2022) and Kaaj educational (September 30, 2022). Based on statistics published by media and international organizations, an estimated 500 people have been injured in those blasts.
In 2021, Sakina* was a teenager in Kabul attending the Sayed Al-Shuhada school. On the day ISIS terrorists attacked the school, she was in the schoolyard with her close friend, Fatima. They were leaving as it was Ramadan and they were thirsty. Fatima was killed instantly in the explosion, but Sakina was taken to Ariana Hospital, where she was hospitalized for 12 days. Her entire body was injured. Though the injuries to her leg, right hand, and head have healed, the injury to her left hand was very severe and not properly treated. According to her medical documents, the nerves, tendons, and muscles in her hand were seriously damaged. “I can’t do anything with my left hand; it doesn’t move, and I am disabled in this area,” she explains.
Since that incident, Sakina has not returned to school and still feels a fear engulfing her whenever she approaches the school: “That day was the last day of school for me and hundreds of students like me. Some of them went to school and never returned home, and some others came back home weeks or even months after that day, injured and disabled.” Still, unlike Azizullah, she is doing all she can to resume her education. It isn’t easy, especially as she has to do everything with her right hand. She rolls up her sleeve to show how thin her left hand has become over the past two years. In addition, that weakness has meant her arm is much frailer than her right arm.
Before the suicide bombing, Sakina helped her father and three sisters make rugs, but now she can’t weave. Although a few of the girls who were injured at the Sayed Al-Shuhada school along with Sakina have managed to go to countries like Pakistan and India for treatment, thanks to benefactors, Sakina never received this opportunity.
Despite her ailing body and wounded spirit, Sakina tries to continue both her education and life. On the internet, she frequently watches motivational videos of a Pakistani girl who continues her life even after her own hand was amputated. “She always speaks positively,” says Sakina of the Pakistani girl. “This gives me some hope again. So, I always try to think and speak positively in most cases, so that my situation does not get worse.”
Sakina is also determined to continue her studies. “If the schools were open, I would go to school,” she explains. “My wish is to become a teacher in the future and teach my students to value life, to be strong, kind, and to create value for humanity.”
* Ferdaws Daneshmand is the pseudonym of a journalist in Afghanistan.
