Afghan Women Protest after School Attack in Kabul

On Friday morning, a suicide bomber blew himself up in the study hall of Kaj Education Center in Dasht-e-Barchi, a mainly Hazara neighborhood west of the Afghan capital Kabul.

The neighborhood is an area where most residents are Afghan Hazara Shiites, who have been the target of brutal suicide attacks by terrorist groups and ISIS in recent years.

According to the Afghan police, 19 people were killed in Friday's incident, but the United Nations has put the death toll at 24.

On Saturday, dozens of Afghan women gathered in front of a hospital in Dasht-e-Barchi where some of the injured and victims of the attack are hospitalized, chanting, “Stop Hazara genocide, it’s not a crime to be a Shiite”.

ISIS terrorist group claimed responsibility for the attack hours after the explosion in the center.

The Hazara community, the poorest of the country’s ethnic groups, accounts for about 22 percent of Afghanistan’s population. Its members have been targeted in several large-scale kidnappings and killings across Afghanistan in the past.

In May last year, at least 85 people – mainly girl students – were killed and about 300 wounded when three bombs exploded near their school in the Shiite-dominated Dasht-e-Barchi neighborhood of Kabul.

In October 2020, ISIS admitted to attacking an educational center in the same area that killed 24 people, including students.

In May 2020, the group was blamed for a bloody attack on a maternity ward of a hospital in the same neighborhood that killed 25 people, including new mothers.

ISIS has a foothold in eastern and northern Afghanistan, particularly in Nangarhar, which is regarded as its base in the war-torn country. It has recently claimed responsibility for several attacks across Afghanistan.

Since returning to power, the Taliban have pledged to provide security for minority groups in Afghanistan. However, Amnesty International said Friday's attack is a reminder of the utter inability and failure of the Taliban to protect the lives of the people of this country.