Pakistan: strike against a Kabul detoxification center: families want answers

Pakistan struck a rehabilitation center and killed 269 Afghans. Their families want to know why

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On a cold, rainy morning, Masooda goes to a hillside cemetery northwest of Kabul to visit the grave of his younger brother Mirwais.

But she doesn’t know exactly where he was buried after being killed in a Pakistani airstrike two months ago.

Instead, she stands at the edge of a mass grave, carefully lined with small white stones and crudely marked with gray granite slabs, that is the final resting place of some of the at least 269 people killed in the attack on a drug rehabilitation center.

It is impossible to say exactly how many people are in the grave: like 24-year-old Mirwais, many were barely identifiable – smashed to pieces or burned beyond recognition.

“My brother’s body was in pieces. There was almost nothing left to give us,” said Masooda, 27, breaking down as he spoke. “They just found his torso. I identified him by a birthmark he had.”

The attack on the Omid drug rehabilitation hospital is the deadliest attack in Afghanistan, perhaps ever, but certainly in recent history, including 20 years of war between the Taliban and NATO and Afghan republic forces.

A report released Tuesday by the United Nations puts the confirmed number at 269, but acknowledges the true figure is likely significantly higher.

Some are calling for the attack to be investigated as a war crime.

The carnage at the drug treatment center accounts for most of the fighting deaths this year. The scale of the death toll is so staggering that it has shocked Afghanistan, despite its long experience of violent conflict.

The UN, which had access to the site, as well as teams from the BBC’s Afghan services immediately on site, confirm that the strike hit civilians being treated. Human Rights Watch called it “an illegal attack and a possible war crime.”

But Pakistan disputes that the attack hit a civilian target. In a statement to the BBC, she said “no hospitals, no drug treatment centers and no civilian establishments were targeted”, adding: “The targets were military and terrorist infrastructure.”

Masooda is angered by this statement.

“Pakistan is lying. I saw it and it was not a military camp. There were men admitted there who had come to get treatment and return to their families,” says Masooda.

She is not alone. The BBC spoke to the families of more than 30 victims – including those of recovering drug addicts and workers at the center – who reject Pakistan’s claims.

The Omid Center may be located in a former military training complex called Camp Phoenix, which was once used by U.S. and NATO forces, but it is far from new.

Opened in 2016, after the Americans abandoned the base and five years before the Taliban took power in 2021, Omid was well known and had been widely covered by national and international media.

“It’s literally about a kilometer from the main UN offices. We have UN agencies, which support patients at this hospital, so the site was well known to us,” said Fiona Frazer, the representative of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Afghanistan.

Mirwais – one of three million Afghans struggling with drug addiction – was one of the most recent patients hospitalized.

Masooda, who raised him as a son after the death of their parents, revealed that he was studying to become a pharmacist when he became addicted to “Tablet-K”, the trade name for a synthetic drug that, depending on its type, can contain methamphetamine, opioids or MDMA.

“He was a simple boy who had developed bad habits. He had only been in Omid for 10 days when this happened,” Masooda said.

The three bombs fell on the facility on the Kabul-Jalalabad highway around 8:50 p.m. local time on March 16, one of the doctors on duty at the time told the BBC. He did not wish to be identified because he had not been authorized to speak by the Taliban government.

“One of them hit a hangar-like structure where newly admitted patients are normally housed,” he said.

“The other two bombs hit containers and wooden blocks housing patients, as well as food storage units and offices of administrative, security and support staff.”

The UN’s Fiona Frazer points out that it also affected “the vocational training areas within the hospital, which were predominantly wooden buildings, which then caused a very, very large fire.”

The UN report on the attack noted that “the main cause of harm to those killed and injured was shrapnel wounds and burns.” He adds that “several bodies could not be identified due to the nature of their injuries or because they were reduced to dismembered parts.”

“I have never seen such a horrible scene in my life,” the doctor continued. “I walked among the corpses looking for anyone who was alive, looking for those screaming for help. The smell of burning flesh was everywhere.”

In eastern Kabul, Sediq Walizada’s phone rang at home – a relative called to tell him the center had been bombed. It was the start of an excruciating search for Sediq’s brother, Mohammad Anwar Walizada, 35, who had been admitted to Omid just four days before the attack. Like Mirwais, he struggled with an addiction to Tablet-K, which is increasingly used in Afghan cities.

“We went from one hospital to another. There were so many dead. Their bodies were in pieces and unrecognizable. We hoped that our brother could have escaped,” said Sediq, trauma visible on his face.

The list of patients admitted to the hospital was destroyed in the fire, according to the UN, making it extremely difficult for people like Sediq to find their loved ones.

Every day, Sediq and his other brothers sifted through gruesome photos of charred bodies to try to see if they could identify Mohammad Anwar. Four days later, as the world celebrated Eid, they found a photo of a body with clothing and other identifying marks that made them believe it might be their brother.

“Not knowing if he was dead or alive was so painful. And then the agony of finding his body cut in two. But it’s a relief that we found our brother. Some families never found their loved ones because the bodies were so burned,” Sediq said, his voice trembling.

In a corner of their house is the tricycle on which Mohammad Anwar sold bottled water. A father of six, he struggled to earn enough money to run his household and became addicted to drugs.

“He didn’t turn to drugs for fun. He turned to it because of his helplessness, his poverty and his difficulties,” says Sediq.

Mohammad Anwar’s story mirrors many of those told to the BBC by grieving families, including that of Mirwais.

“My nephew could not find work and poverty pushed him to become a drug addict,” said his uncle, Abdul Wahid.

Families also wonder why the center was attacked.

“Why did Pakistan do such a thing?” » asks Wahid Sailani, whose brother Ajmal was killed in the attack. “Why did they bomb innocent people?”

Pakistan has repeatedly denied the innocence of those present at the center. In response to questions from the BBC, the Pakistani military sent a transcript of an interview on Pakistani television channel Geo News TV, in which spokesperson Lt. Gen. Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry claimed “they are using these drug addicts as suicide bombers,” adding that the center was “most likely a training center for suicide bombers.”

Every family we spoke to disputed the allegation.

“[My late brother] Melad was sick and we took him there for treatment. Everyone knows it was a hospital, not a terrorist center,” Miraj Ali Mohammad told the BBC.

“I saw the hospital,” said Zahidullah Khan, whose brother Rahimullah was killed. “There was nothing military there. I even have videos. The people there were drug addicts.”

And the families of addicts aren’t the only ones speaking out.

Hedayatullah’s brother, Emal Abdul Malik, was an employee of the center until he was killed.

“He worked as an assistant in the hospital kitchen,” Hedayatullah said. “They cooked for all the patients – everyone was a patient.”

For the Taliban government in Afghanistan, the conflict marks a serious turning point in relations with its neighbor. Top Pakistani officials were among the first to visit Afghanistan after the Taliban seized power in 2021. Today, the two sides are engaged in violent conflict and an almost daily war of words.

“Targeting innocent civilians is a war crime. International organizations should investigate the incident and prosecute those responsible accordingly,” said Hamdullah Fitrat, deputy spokesman for the Taliban government, speaking to the BBC in Kabul about the strike.

Pakistan also blames Afghanistan for the deaths of hundreds of civilians since last year, alleging that militant groups Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) are behind the attacks and enjoy sanctuary with the Taliban government.

In a statement to the BBC, the Pakistani army said: “The Pak istan, the region and the world as a whole continue to face the serious threat of terrorism emanating from territory under the control of the Afghan Taliban regime. »

Fitrat, the Taliban’s deputy spokesperson, said it does not use “its territory against anyone and does not allow any armed group to operate in Afghanistan,” adding that the TTP and Baloch separatists have been “active in Pakistan for a long time, and this is not a new phenomenon.”

He also insisted that Kabul was safe.

But the attack in the heart of the capital shattered the relative peace that Afghans had slowly become accustomed to since the war ended in 2021 and raised fears of a return to violence and bloodshed.

Among most victims’ families, no one expects anyone to be held responsible for what happened to their loved ones.

“We are an oppressed people. We have no power to react,” says the brother of a victim. “We have suffered injustice and brutality. May God bring the guilty to justice.”

Additional reporting by Imogen Anderson, Mahfouz Zubaide, Ahmad Fawad Zhwak, Auliya Atrafi, Sanjay Ganguly