Stories from the genocidal campaign against ethnic Hazaras in Afghanistan
A poster with photos of 54 people, mostly students and girls from ethnic Hazara community, killed in the September 30, 2022 suicide attack on Kaaj in Kabul. Source: Freshta’s uncle Arif Joya
By Ali Yawar Adili
The night before her death, Hajar Muhammadi had dinner with her family. She retired early unlike other nights when she would stay awake until midnight to study. She was unusually quiet that night. Her older sister Parwana was chatting with a group of friends from the neighborhood.
“I was laughing and Hajar said there must be something naughty going on with me,” Parwana said. “Come and see, I responded. Hajar did not and went straight to bed.”
The next morning, on September 30, 2022, Hajar was sitting in a lecture hall of Kaaj – a tutoring center – in west Kabul with hundreds of other girls taking a practice exam in preparation for kankor – a university admission exam – scheduled for the following week. A suicide attacker blew himself up, killing 54 people and wounding 124 others, mostly students and girls. The students were members of the ethnic Hazara community.
A genocidal campaign
Afghanistan’s Hazara community has lost count of such attacks. Attacks against the community began to increase in 2016 according to a 2017 United Nations Assistance Mission to Afghanistan report that recorded 12 attacks resulting in 689 civilian casualties from January 2016 to November 2017, compared to five incidents in the previous six years. Since then, the Hazaras have been subject to increasing violence and bloodshed that bears the hallmarks of a genocidal campaign.
The Hazaras are one of the major ethnic groups in Afghanistan. The exact size of each group is unclear. The Hazaras speak a Persian dialect and the majority of them adhere to Shia Islam in Sunni-majority Afghanistan. A significant number of the Hazaras also follow the Ismaili Shia or Sunni Islam.
The attack on Kaaj shook the community to its core and inspired a widespread “stop Hazara genocide” campaign.
Every time there is an attack, the lives lost are summed up with numbers. The stories below paint portraits of some of the lives cut short, dreams shattered into pieces and families devastated in the September 30 attack on Kaaj.
Hajar’s shattered dreams
At 7:36 am, Parwana was at home when she heard someone knocking on the door. It was her cousin, Onsia. She broke the bad news that a blast had hit Kaaj. Parwana and Onsia rushed to Kaaj, but the Taliban soldiers did not let them in. After the pair insisted, they were able to get inside but were told that the “martyrs” had been transferred to the nearby mosque.
“There was a pile of dead bodies and we were unable to check one by one,” Parwana said.
After they arrived at Muhammad Ali Jinnah Hospital, they learned that Onsia’s sister, Marzia, had been killed and her body found, but Hajar was missing. Hajar’s body was eventually found at the Forensic Science Department at noon. Marzia’s uncle, Zaher Modaqeq, posted on Facebook that they had identified Hajar from among more than 20 other students who “had been torn into pieces.”
“Part of her head had been ripped off,” Sirat said. “It was Hajar’s body. They recognized it from her liver-colored clothes, black sports sneakers, and silver earrings.”
At 5:00 pm, they buried Hajar and Marzia next to each other.
Hajar and Marzia are buried next to each other. They were cousins and killed in a 30 September suicide bombing on Kaaj in Kabul. Photo: Hajar’s family
When Hajar started tutoring courses, she promised herself that she would study engineering. In her last practice exam, she achieved a score of 325, which further boosted her confidence. It made her think she could get a scholarship to study abroad.
Hajar wrote about her daily life, experiences, and dreams in a diary.
“One of Hajar’s diary entries is particularly painful for me,” Parwana said. “She wrote when she passes the kankor exam, she will celebrate it at home and take sweets for her teachers.”
Parwana studies psychology at Kabul University. Hajar’s death affected her so much that she wanted to drop out of university but was able to muster her strength. She promised to pick up Hajar’s shattered dreams and never abandon her studies.
Marzia’s wishlist
Marzia Muhammadi would have turned 18 in February 2023. She attended Kawsar Danesh – another tutoring center – before the Taliban takeover that disrupted education centers at least for two months. After they resumed, Marzia enrolled in Kaaj because it offered a 50 percent discount.
Her father studied up to grade two and makes a living by working for a government agency. Her mother is uneducated and a housewife, but also does tailoring to support her children’s education fees.
On September 30, Marzia’s sister Onsia had been invited by her cousin Sara to lunch. Sara had asked Onsia to show up early to help her. Onsia was getting ready to go to Sara’s home when Marzia’s cell phone rang – Marzia had forgotten to take her phone. When Onsia answered the phone, the caller checked on Marzia because of an explosion at Kaaj and then hung up without identifying themselves. Onsia guesses it might have been one of Marzia’s classmates.
Onsia turned to Facebook which was abuzz with the news about the explosion. She then woke up her mother, who was still sleeping. She called her father and uncle, Hajar’s father, who were attending khatm-e Quran (recitation of the Quran), a common ritual on Friday mornings.
Later, Onsia’s father found Marzia’s body in Watan Hospital, took her to Muhammad Ali Jinnah Hospital for registration, and then returned home.
The last time Onsia talked to Marzia was the night before the attack. Marzia did not talk and laugh much that night. She asked Onsia to help her download a song, nafas (breath). Onsia told her that she would do it another time because the internet was down. Marzia then went to sleep. She overslept and told Hajar that she would catch up with her later at Kaaj.
Hajar and Marzia’s families have placed their favorite books in a makeshift library on their graves. Photo: Hajar’s family
Marzia also wanted to major in engineering. Her younger sister, Zahra, was in tenth grade when the Taliban captured power. The Taliban banned girls from attending school beyond grade six. She now studies only English at a private school in Kabul.
Onsia was lucky that she was absent on the day when her own tutoring center, Kawsar Danesh, also in the Hazara-majority area, was hit by an explosion two years earlier, in October 2020. According to a UNAMA report, the explosion killed 40 people and injured 79 others, mainly students.
Marzia kept a diary. In one entry, she listed her dreams in life which included meeting Turkish-British novelist Elif Shafak. Another particular entry in her diary is heartbreaking for Onsia. When Onsia passed the kankor, Marzia wrote, “I am very happy today.” Onsia wept as she described the entry. She wishes Marzia could have lived long enough to attend the kankor so she would return her happiness. She muted her mic to sob before she resumed the conversation and referred me to her uncle’s Facebook post that expressed her family’s feelings the day kankor results were announced this year.
On November 6, Marzia’s uncle Modaqeq wrote that he had been with Marzia’s family the night before when the newscaster read the news of kankor results.
“All of a sudden, a hush fell over the room and everyone stopped talking,” he wrote. Perhaps, we were all waiting to hear Marzia’s name because she had decided to be among the ten top scorers in the kankor.”
Freshta never celebrated her 20th birthday
Freshta Nawruzi graduated from Baba Girl’s School in Jaghori district of Ghazni in 2021. She spent the last two winters in Kabul attending tutoring center to prepare for kankor. Her uncle, Arif Joya, said that the family had planned to celebrate Freshta’s belated 20th birthday one of those days around September 30, 2022.
On that day, Freshta’s grandma had planned to throw a baby shower for one of her daughters-in-law. She had invited Freshta’s mother from Jaghori. Arif had just woken up and asked if Freshta had breakfast before heading out to her class when he received a call. His friend informed him that there had been an explosion at Kaaj. He started shivering and sweating. His niece was there.
“I ran the 20-minute long distance in 5 minutes to get to Kaaj,” Arif told me.
Freshta Nawruzi and the books she was reading in preparation for the university entry exam. Photo: Her uncle Arif Joya
Arif evaded the Taliban so he could find his niece. He looked inside the lecture hall and saw harrowing scenes of a bloodbath. He then went to the nearby mosque where the bodies had been piled up.
“Some of the girls were without heads and some of them had parts of their heads torn off,” said Arif.
He sat next to a body that looked like Freshta’s, but when his cousin arrived, she told him that it was not Freshta. Joya dashed to Watan Hospital where he found Freshta along with three other bodies in the basement. Freshta’s mother, who had come for the baby shower, now had to travel back with her daughter’s coffin, Arif noted as he sighed a deep sigh of sorrow.
Back in their home village, Freshta’s teachers and schoolmates had lined up on the sides of the road to pay tribute to her. They buried Freshta that night. Her school’s teachers and students named the school’s library after Freshta.
Freshta also kept a diary. One of the entries that Arif read to me was on life: “Do not forget that life is not that eternal to delay kindness to tomorrow. So be kind because there may not be a tomorrow. Life, life, life.”
One could write the stories of 51 other students whose lives were cut short in a single attack which will sadly remain one of the most shocking attacks against the Hazaras only until the next one. Modaqeq after burying Marzia and Hajar wrote:
“Whom to curse and what to do? It is our everyday story.”
Ali Y. Adili is an MIA candidate at Columbia University. He has previously worked with New America and Afghanistan Analysts Network. His research publications are available here.