They were four friends, living in opposite parts of the city, coming from different parts of the country. They’d see each other every day in class; meeting over cups of green tea in the afternoon’s golden light, or taking walks under leafy trees in vibrant autumn colours on their imposing university campus.
On Monday, the serene atmosphere changed forever, leaving behind a bloodbath and bullet-riddled classrooms, smashed cups of tea and windows, burned out offices.
Out of their small circle – all of them in their early 20s – Dunya sits at home today, recovering from a back injury. Nasrat, with four bullets piercing his body has been holding on to life and is now recovering in hospital.
Rokia and Rahed were laid to rest in different parts of the city on Tuesday, their ambitions, their dreams extinguished.
An Islamic State attack on Kabul University – the country’s biggest and most prestigious institution with an enrolment of at least 22,000 – has left at least 35 dead, most of them students, and injured dozens more.
Sustained gunfire and loud blasts could be heard in West Kabul where the university is located throughout the six-hour-long offence that only ended at dusk after Afghan forces and US commandos killed the three attackers.
Days after, the sour-sweet smell of blood and burned books lingers in the air of the school’s devastated rooms, the country reeling from yet another brutal assault.
Dunya Sangar Niazai, and her friends had been studying public administration and policy, most of them determined to enter politics one day, hoping to turn around their war-torn, corrupt country.
The 20-year-old had usually been sitting in the classroom’s first row, but, being one of the last ones to arrive, her best friend Rokia had taken her usual seat, with Dunya settling down in the back of the room.
“We didn’t immediately panic when we heard the gunshots and explosions. We thought the sound came from construction workers, with our professor asking three students to go downstairs, telling them to stop making noise as it interrupted our lesson,” Dunya told The Telegraph.
One of the students was immediately shot, while two others returned, their faces pale, telling their classmates, “lie down on the floor, they are coming and they will shoot you.”
While Rokia and Rahed were brutally murdered, Nasrat and Dunya managed to escape alongside several other students. “I jumped out of the second floor of the building, trying to crawl away as I had injured my back. The terrorists were shooting and bullets were flying everywhere. Students were screaming for help.”
Two days later, the young woman sits at home with her family, wearing a pair of fashionably ripped jeans and chipping red nail polish, her dad – a prominent television anchor – sitting by her side sporting a suit and a baseball cap.
A local journalist had brought her a notebook from the site of the attack, its pages glued together by dried blood. Dunya’s hands carefully examined it, her eyes filling with tears.
Many students believe that, while the Taliban hasn’t claimed the attack, they are the only group able to enable groups such as the Islamic State to carry out such attacks.
Protests erupted outside the university campus on Tuesday, calling for a boycott of the Doha talks, the direct negotiations between the Taliban and the Afghan government that commenced in September, months after the US and the Taliban had joined a deal towards peace and US troop withdrawal.
“If the Taliban were loyal to the peace process, such an assault wouldn’t have happened,” Dunya said. Many government officials make similar claims, including Ministry of Interior spokesperson Tarek Arian, who said “the Taliban were involved” in Monday’s killings.
Dunya, now in her final year of studies, had been dreaming of studying at Kabul University, transferring from Nangarhar University in the country’s east after her first year.
She told The Telegraph that she wouldn’t be giving up, hoping to resume classes as soon as possible. “Everyone in Afghanistan is a fighter,” she said. “We’re all fighting for our lives, our futures.”
After the carnage, Dunya, who climbed over the university’s walls to escape – removing barbed wire that had been installed to keep violence away from the campus – took a taxi home. The first message on her course’s WhatsApp group came from a classmate.
“Friends, are you okay?” It read. She didn’t know back then who would be – and wouldn’t be okay.
“Lives were wasted,” she said, again holding back her tears. Her best friend Rokia had wanted to become a teacher, eager to raise Afghanistan’s poor literacy rates.
Rahed had aimed to enter politics. Weeks before the attack, the 22-year-old man with his kind-looking hazel eyes and trimmed beard had posted a video on social media, encouraging his generation in the midst of war and conflict.
“All in all, life can be problematic. There is pain, grief, difficulties and pressures,” he said.
“But on these lips, there’s always a smile. Whatever it is in life, it too passes. Living with a smile is not a loss. And we need to live.”
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