Survivors Of Peshawar School Attack Recount The Horror That Claimed 141 Lives
"I folded my tie and pushed it into my mouth so that I wouldn't scream. I lay as still as I could and closed my eyes, waiting to get shot again," said one of the survivors.
By Sadho Ram — 17 Dec 2014, 05:24 PM — Updated almost 10 years ago
On 16 December 2014, when several hundred students, aged between ten and eighteen, arrived at the Army Public School (APS) in Pakistan, they had no idea that their day, which had began with the promise of a sunny winter day, would turn into their last
There is no class 9 in APS anymore. All students were killed in the #PeshawarAttack. Dawood, 15, is the only survivor pic.twitter.com/Kb2RUcjTcJ
— Javeria (@JaveriaShakil) December 17, 2014
The horrific attack on the APS in Peshawar, Pakistan, has claimed 141 lives, 132 of whom were schoolchildren attending the school
A mother mourns her son Mohammed Ali Khan, 15, a student who was killed during an attack by Taliban gunmen on the Army Public School.
Image via guim.co.ukThe massacre is the single worst act of terror attack in Pakistan's history and one of the most brutal assaults on a school anywhere else in the world. As The Washington Post notes, even in conflict-ravaged Pakistan, it seems an unprecedented act of terror.
Education is a dangerous thing in Pakistan. Tuesday’s horrific attack was the latest in a long list of assaults over the last few years that runs into the thousands. Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai’s case might be the most well known, but a quick look at the country’s past makes it clear that little has changed since those infamous shots rang out in 2012, turning her into a household name the world over.
“We selected the army’s school for the attack because the government is targeting our families and females,” said a Taliban spokesman, Muhammad Umar Khorasani. “We want them to feel the pain.”
This pain is not new to parents of school-going children in Pakistan though. A report by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, at the University of Maryland, concluded that there had been more attacks on educational institutions in Pakistan in 2012 than in the next four countries combined. Included in those other four countries is Afghanistan, a state generally believed to be much more hostile to education.
So the day that had began like any other morning in the Army Public School, in an instant its peace was shattered with crazed militants rushing from classroom to classroom shooting randomly at children and teachers. Survivors, who witnessed the horror, described how the Taliban shot their friends and teachers.
Ebad, a 10th-grade student, one of the survivors of the attack, said that he saw the militants kill forty or fifty students. They then entered one classroom after another, firing upon the students.
An injured student receives treatment at a Peshawar hospital following the attack.
Image via rferl.org"It was 10:30 this morning when we were called to an auditorium to get first-aid training by an army colonel," he said. "When we walked in, gunshots erupted and [the militants] entered the auditorium. They killed many students -- I saw about 40 to 50 students killed in front of me -- and they also fired at the colonel. There were bomb blasts, as well. I saw four or five [militants] dressed in plain black clothes."
From there, Ebad said, the militants turned their focus to other classrooms, where some 500 students were studying.
"One of my colleagues breathed his last breath in my arms," he said. "Many students were shot in the legs, the face, in the back."
rferl.org
Khalid Khan, aged 13, told Reuters he and his classmates were in a first aid lesson in the main hall when two clean-shaven armed men wearing white clothes and black jackets entered the room
"They opened fire at the students and then went out. The army doctor and soldiers managed to escape and we locked the doors from inside," he said. "But very soon they came, broke the doors and entered and again started firing."
He said many tried to hide under their the desks but were shot anyway, adding that there were around 150 students in the hall around the time of the attack.
"They killed most of my classmates and then I didn't know what happened as I was brought to the hospital," said Khan, breaking down in sobs.
Another student, Jalal Ahmed, aged 15, could hardly speak, choking with tears, as Reuters asked him at one of the hospitals
"I am a biochemistry student and I was attending a lecture in our main hall. There are five doors in the hall. After some time we heard someone kicking the back doors. There were gunshots but our teacher told us to be quiet and calmed us down.
"Then the men came with big guns."
Ahmed started to cry. Standing next to his bed, his father, Mushtaq Ahmed, said:
"He keeps screaming: 'take me home, take me home, they will come back and kill me'."
A nine-year-old boy, who asked not to be named because he was too scared to be identified, said teachers shepherded his class out through a back door as soon as the shooting began
"The teacher asked us to recite from the Koran quietly," he said. "When we came out from the back door there was a crowd of parents who were crying. When I saw my father, he was also crying."
firstpost.com
One of the most vivid accounts of the attack came from a 16-year-old student who spoke to the A.F.P. at Lady Reading Hospital. He was in the school auditorium when the militants barged in and opened fire. He was shot in both his legs; he stuffed his school tie in his mouth to keep himself from screaming, and played dead.
Speaking from his bed in the trauma ward of the city's Lady Reading Hospital, Salman, 16, said he and his classmates were in a careers-guidance session in the school auditorium when four gunmen wearing paramilitary uniforms burst in.
“Someone screamed at us to get down and hide below the desks,” he said, adding that the gunmen shouted “Allahu akbar” (God is greatest) before opening fire. Then one of them shouted: 'There are so many children beneath the benches, go and get them',” Salman told AFP.
"I saw a pair of big black boots coming towards me, this guy was probably hunting for students hiding beneath the benches."
Salman said he felt searing pain as he was shot in both his legs just below the knee. He decided to play dead, adding: "I folded my tie and pushed it into my mouth so that I wouldn't scream. The man with big boots kept on looking for students and pumping bullets into their bodies. I lay as still as I could and closed my eyes, waiting to get shot again," he said.
"My body was shivering. I saw death so close and I will never forget the black boots approaching me. I felt as though it was death that was approaching me," Salman added further.
As his father comforted him in his blood-soaked bed, he recalled:
Pakistani men transport a wounded student to hospital after Taliban gunmen attacked the school in Peshawar. This is not the boy who played dead to avoid the gunmen.
Image via AFP“The men left after some time and I stayed there for a few minutes. Then I tried to get up but fell to the ground because of my wounds. When I crawled to the next room, it was horrible. I saw the dead body of our office assistant on fire,” he said.
"She was sitting on the chair with blood dripping from her body as she burned," Salman added.
Salman, who said he also saw the body of a soldier who worked at the school, crawled behind a door to hide and then lost consciousness. “When I woke up I was lying on the hospital bed,” he added.
Mohammad Hilal, a student in the 10th grade, was shot three times in his arm and legs when the militants stormed the APS auditorium
"I think I passed out for a while. I thought I was dreaming. I wanted to move but felt paralysed. Then I came to and realised that actually two other boys had fallen on me. Both of them were dead," he told the BBC.
As a mark of respect, several schools in Pakistan were closed, with those remaining open holding special prayers
