With an absent gaze and left arm wrapped in blood-soaked bandages, Mubarak Etemadi says he lost most of his friends in Monday’s attack on Kabul University.
He is recovering from a deep gunshot wound to his arm and another, shallower one, to his neck in Wazir Akbar Khan hospital, miles away from the carnage that killed at least 22 and left dozens more injured.
Three men affiliated with ISIS stormed the university premises in the Afghan capital at about 11am local time, detonating a suicide bomb and spraying classrooms with bullets in a brazen hours-long assault.
“We sat in our classroom when we heard gunfire,” the law student, 22, who is in his final year, whispered quietly, exhausted.
“We were on the second floor and jumped out of the windows, but the attackers shot down on us.”
Today is once again a dark day for Afghanistan and for our people
Dr Sayed Abdullah Ahmadi, director of Wazir Akbar Khan hospital
While awaiting surgery, Mr. Etemadi frantically makes calls and sends messages, checking on friends to find out who was able to escape.
At times he drops the phone and dozes off, or perhaps tries to process the day’s events – a complex attack that lasted for more than six hours, while both Afghan forces and US commandos fought the three attackers.
The campus has since been cordoned off, with further clearance operations commencing under way.
Despite direct peace talks between the Afghan government and Taliban in Qatar’s capital Doha, and US preparations to withdraw its troops by next May, violence has continued to rock the country.
In the first nine months of this year alone, the UN documented 2,117 civilian deaths and injuries to 3,822 people.
Hopes for a peace settlement seem to be fading for many.
