Symptoms of psychological distress appeared immediately after Monday’s attack. Sayed Adel, 11, bleeding from his ears, was led home by his 12-year-old brother, who was also at the school.
“Sayed Adel was so shocked and the entire night he could not sleep and didn’t allow us to sleep either,” said his grandmother and the head teacher, Ms. Amiri. “He kept telling us that he doesn’t want to go to school anymore. He was saying that something is eating him from inside.”
A fifth-grade religion teacher at the bombed school, Safiullah, 24, woke up in a hospital bed after the explosion. (Like many Afghans, he uses only one name.) “I am really worried about my students,” he said. “They are just 10 and 12, they have no idea about war and peace. It is a dirty game by the Americans and the Taliban.”
The Taliban said the attack was aimed at the military facility. In an unusual admission, however, the insurgents acknowledged there were civilian casualties.
“According to some reports, some civilians have been slightly wounded,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said. “But civilians were not the target.”
Mr. Ghani’s government has so far been excluded from the peace talks, although the Americans have insisted that once a deal is made the next step would be talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban.
The Afghan government used the attack on the school as evidence of Taliban bad faith. “This shows they are not committed to peace,” Mr. Seddiqi said.
Mr. Darwish, the English teacher, said he is having trouble sleeping. “Yesterday all the students were screaming, ‘Mom, please come and save me,’ and I was hearing that again and again,” Mr. Darwish said.
Source : Nytimes
