By: Esmat Altaf
Suicide attackers on 30 September targeted Barchi area, an area with mainly Hazara residents, in the west of Kabul between 6 to 7 am.
According to the primary reports about 70-80 male and female students have been killed in the attack on Kaaj Educational Center.
According to the students, suicide attackers entered the classroom which has a capacity of 700 students.
The victims included high school graduates, both girls and boys, who were taking a practice university entrance exam when the blast went off after the suicide attackers have broken into the educational center through the female’s gate.
Kaaj Educational Center is located in Dashte Barchi, a Hazara and Shiite area, where KEC provides mainly entrance exam trainings.
According to the educational timetable of Kaaj Educational Center, Fridays are mainly allocated to practice exams. Therefore, the numbers of students who attended these classes are more than other days; because many students from other educational centers attend these classes to check their abilities. As a result, the numbers of the casualties are more than what have been announced by the Taliban officials.
Who were the victims?
The victims of this attacks and the previous attacks in this area have some common characteristics:
A. The victims are Hazaras and Shiites; Because Kaaj Educational Center and other similar centers are located in Hazara area. And such attacks have mainly targeted Hazaras.
B. The victims are teenagers and children; Most of the students of these centers are from other provinces. Because the quality of education is very low in the provinces and they come to Kabul to get ready for the entrance exam. But they do not know they may put their lives on getting better education.
Most of the students of entrance centers are students who have newly been graduated from high school.
C. Most of these victims are girls; As the suicide attacker has entered the classroom with a capacity of 7000 students through the female gate, most of the victims are girls.
The suicide attack comes while thousands of girl students are banned from schooling by the Taliban.
The Taliban group has closed the school doors on girl students when they seized power more than one year ago and does not allow girls students above 7 grade to go to school. As a result, they have no options but to attend education centers.
Kaaj was formed after the suicide attack on Mawoud Education Center in 2018.
More than 50 Hazara students were killed and 70 were injured in that attack.
It is not the first and nor the last attack on Hazara ans Shiite students in Kabul; suicide attacks on Abdul Rahim Shahid, Saydul Shohada, Kawsar Educational Center, Maowoud Educational Center, and other similar attacks prove this claim.
As these killings deliberately target a specific ethnic and religious group, they can be termed structured genocide as the UK government has already warned of the deliberate killing of Hazaras in recent years.
To end this bloody process it needs advocacy at the international level.
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