By: Rukhshana media
A suicide attack at Kaaj tuition center in the Shia-Hazara neighborhood of Kabul killed 19 people and wounded dozens around 7:30 this morning, September 30, police said on Friday.
Kabul police spokesperson Khalid Zadran said that 27 people had also been injured in the attack.
“The attack took place at an educational center where an entrance exam was taking place,” Zadran tweeted.
Asad, a student who survived the suicide attack, told Rukhshana Media that today was the last day of the mock exam for the university entrance test at Kaaj educational center.
He said that the majority of students who came to Kabul from the provinces to prepare for the university entrance exam were supposed to spend the last day of their tutorial course today.
Asad added that there were more than five hundred male and female students in the classroom, and the most victims of the suicide attack are girls because the attacker detonated his bomb belt in the area where girls were sitting.
After the gender segregation plan of the Taliban, classrooms have been divided into two sections for girls and boys. To implement the plan, Kaaj Institue held a board in the middle of the class, where girls were sitting in the front and boys at the back.
Sources said that so far at least 20 students have been killed and nearly 40 others have been injured, but the death toll may rise.
According to the sources, the suicide attacker first targeted the guard of the educational center and then entered the classroom and detonated himself.
In video footage published on social media, the residents carry the wounded students to the hospital with wheelbarrows.
According to the sources, the wounded students are transferred to Dasht-e-Barchi 100-bed, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, and Watan hospitals.
Today’s attack took place at the same center where a similar attack killed 48 students in 2018 and wounded 67 others.
The Shia-Hazara community in Afghanistan has been repeatedly targeted by Sunni Muslim extremists of the Islamic State group and others, which views the Shia practice of Islam as heretical.
