By Laila Yousufy
Four years ago, government worker Najiba Bahar was killed in a suicide attack in the Afghan capital, Kabul. Now Taliban members have destroyed the library built in her legacy in her hometown of Nili in central Daikundi province.
After the Taliban’s lightning takeover of Afghanistan this summer, the group banned secondary school education for women and girls.
Bahar was among the first group of girls who left her hometown in Daikundi province to study abroad. She returned with a Master’s degree in Computer Science from Japan’s Kobe Institute of Computing. She started working for the Afghan government, while also planning her wedding, when a Taliban sucide bomber targeted the bus that was carrying Bahar and her colleagues on July 24, 2017. She was 27 years old. The Taliban later claimed responsibility for the attack.
Two years later, her family and friends set up the Najiba Foundation to honor her memory. Located in one of the most deprived and least developed provinces of Afghanistan, the Najiba library contained over 12,000 fiction and non-fiction books, magazines and journals for university and school students.
Women and girls were regular visitors, where they read novels and took courses in story writing, photography, and mediation.
But earlier this month the foundation announced that it had closed. “All activities of Najiba Foundation Library and Najiba-Akademos Computer-Lab have been suspended until a safe environment is ensured for both, our colleagues and the community members who use our service, without any discrimination,” a statement posted on the foundation’s Twitter account reads.
Hussain Rezai, 34, Najiba’s fiancé and founder of Najiba Foundation, confirmed to Rukhshana Media that the library was looted after the Taliban’s takeover of the province. “I do not know who destroyed the library. But eyewitnesses say people affiliated with the Taliban did this,” he said from Perugia, Italy, where he now lives.
The Najiba Foundation, which ran the library, shared images and videos that show torn pictures, books and broken equipment. “Some of our equipment, including computers and a solar panel, were stolen from the library,” Rezai confirmed.
In April 2021, when the library launched its computer lab, it became the only library equipped with computers in the entire province.
“Najiba Library was a place I requlary visited to read books, especially books I couldn’t find anywhere else,” said 17-year-old Salima Mohammadi, a high school student in Nili city, capital of Daikundi province. “Our schools are closed, and we need Najiba Library more than ever, I hope they can reopen soon,” she added.
The foundation also supported a girls’ volleyball team, which is also now shut.
