Afghanistan Oral History
The Last Class
A Student's Memory of the Sayed ul-Shuhada School Attack
Summary
Zahra Ahmadi was a tenth-grade student at the Sayed ul-Shuhada school in Dasht-e-Barchi, Kabul, when a series of car bombs exploded outside the school gates on May 8, 2021, killing at least 90 people, mostly schoolgirls. She describes the blast that threw her across the classroom, waking up surrounded by her injured classmates, and the long recovery from shrapnel wounds. Her testimony addresses the targeting of Hazara educational institutions, the resilience of female students who returned to school despite threats, and the ultimate closure of girls' schools after the Taliban takeover just three months later.
Full Transcript
Hamid Fidel
Zahra jan, you were fifteen years old when the attack happened. Can you walk us through that day?
Zahra Ahmadi
It was a Saturday — the last day of the school week. We were getting ready to leave. The second shift had just arrived, so the area outside the school was full of girls. I was inside, packing my bag. I heard the first explosion and then — I don't remember the second or third. I woke up on the floor of the classroom. My ears were ringing, everything was white dust. I couldn't feel my legs.
Hamid Fidel
What do you remember after regaining consciousness?
Zahra Ahmadi
Screaming. So much screaming. My friend Hasiba was next to me — she had glass in her face and she was calling for her mother. I tried to stand but my right leg was bleeding badly. I crawled to the window and looked outside. I wish I hadn't. The street was — I cannot describe it. Books and bags and shoes everywhere. And the girls. Some of them I recognized. Some of them I couldn't anymore.
Hamid Fidel
You eventually went back to school after recovering. Why?
Zahra Ahmadi
Because that is exactly what they wanted — for us to be too afraid to go to school. Every Hazara girl who walks into a classroom is saying: you cannot stop us. I went back with shrapnel still in my leg. My mother cried every morning when I left. But I went back. Many of us did. And then three months later, the Taliban took Kabul and closed our schools anyway. They accomplished with a decree what the bombs couldn't.
Hamid Fidel
What does education mean to you now?
Zahra Ahmadi
Everything. It is the one thing they cannot bomb out of our heads. I study secretly now, through online classes when the internet works. There are underground schools across Kabul — girls meeting in living rooms, studying by phone light when the electricity cuts out. They closed our schools but they did not kill our hunger for learning. That hunger is stronger than any bomb.