Eid Mourning in Kabul as Families Search Unmarked Graves After Hospital Strike
Victims of a devastating airstrike in Kabul were buried in unmarked graves, marked only by simple stones without any names to identify the deceased. This sombre scene unfolded as families spent the Muslim festival of Eid searching desperately for their loved ones among the rows of upturned earth.
Catastrophic Strike on Rehabilitation Centre
Pakistan's bombardment campaign, targeting what it describes as terrorist and military infrastructure in neighbouring Afghanistan, appears to have gone catastrophically wrong. According to United Nations officials and Afghan authorities, a rehabilitation centre for drug addicts was struck on Monday night. The UN's preliminary death toll stands at 143 people, while the Taliban administration places the figure at more than 400 dead.
Sohrab Faqiri spent Eid looking for the grave of his brother, Qais, who was killed in the massive Pakistan airstrike on Kabul. Qais, a tailor and father to a 10-year-old boy, had been receiving treatment for the last three months at the facility called Omid, meaning "Hope." Faqiri rushed to the centre after the airstrike but could not find his brother among the survivors. After two days of visiting hospitals throughout Kabul with no success, he accidentally saw a video of a mass burial conducted by authorities for the airstrike victims and spotted his brother among them.
The Saddest Eid Search
On Thursday, which was marked as Eid in Afghanistan, Faqiri went to the hillside graveyard on the edge of Kabul where the burial had taken place. There he found rows of stones planted along lines of upturned earth, but no names to identify any of the bodies.
"Worst of all is that his grave is not known to us," Faqiri said, speaking at the cemetery while bursting into tears. "This is the saddest moment, for a person on Eid day to search for the body of his brother." He has not yet found the courage to tell their mother about the tragedy.
Survivors Describe Night of Horror
The attack occurred just as patients returned to their dormitories after gathering for Tarawih, the special prayers said at night during Ramadan when worshippers ask for forgiveness of their sins. Wali Nazir Mohammad, 23, was tired after the prayers and went to his bed in one of the smaller buildings that accommodated about 20 patients in a single room.
When the explosion woke him, the room and some of his fellow patients were on fire. Many in the room were already dead, while others screamed for help. His waist and leg were in severe pain from shrapnel that came through the walls, even though the room had not been hit directly. Approximately half an hour later, an ambulance transported him to Wazir Akbar Khan hospital, one of Kabul's main medical facilities.
"I have a message for our government: please take our revenge," Mohammad said from his hospital bed. "If the government cannot take our revenge, I ask them to give us weapons."
Rescue Efforts and Unthinkable Destruction
Juma Khan Nael from the Afghan Red Crescent Society, part of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, revealed that many patients had finished their treatment and were due to be discharged the following day. He described how the fire ignited by the bombing could be seen for miles.
"That fire was unthinkable, it could not be controlled, no one could help those trapped by it," he said.
When Nael arrived at the site on the morning after the bombing, rescue workers were still digging through debris, finding hands, feet, and pieces of flesh rather than whole bodies. The smell of burnt meat hung heavily in the air.
Maisam Shafiey from the Norwegian Refugee Council aid group reported that smoke was still rising when he reached the scene the next morning. In another part of the site, some patients remained. Shafiey believed many victims had been together in one large structure.
"A big building was hit. There's nothing there now. The roof had collapsed. Everything was rubble," he said.
Conflicting Accounts and International Response
Afghan authorities state that 408 people were killed and 265 injured in the attack. Islamabad maintains that it struck a military target, claiming that terrorists attacking Pakistan are being harboured by the Taliban.
Georgette Gagnon, the deputy head of the UN mission in Afghanistan, expects her organisation's death toll to rise significantly. She confirmed that "several hundred" appeared to have been killed and injured. The drug treatment centre was located within a facility run by the Afghan de facto administration, and before 2015, the location served as a US military base.
"We call on the parties to de-escalate and re-commit to a ceasefire," she urged.
Medical Response and Patient Stories
Dejan Panic, the country director of Emergency, an Italian NGO that runs a major hospital in Kabul, reported hearing two loud detonations from approximately six miles away across the city. His hospital received 24 wounded patients and three dead bodies that night, with many suffering from shell injuries involving metal shrapnel entering their bodies.
Panic noted that such injuries had become rare in Afghanistan compared to the war years before the 2021 Taliban takeover. One man had broken his thigh bone jumping from a second-floor window to escape the fire, while another was in danger of bleeding to death from a severed femoral artery but reached the hospital in time for life-saving surgery.
The less-injured patients told Panic they had been happy with their treatment at the rehabilitation facility. Drug addicts were a common sight in Kabul before the Taliban seized power but have since been taken off the streets. At the Omid centre, patients were learning practical skills including carpentry, tailoring, and electrical work.
"The patients said that they were getting good food, clothes, and a second chance in life," Panic revealed, highlighting the tragic loss of what had been a hopeful rehabilitation program.
