He didn't turn to drugs for fun. He turned to it because of helplessness, poverty and hardship.
On a March night along the Kabul-Jalalabad highway, three bombs fell on a place where the broken were trying to heal. At least 269 people — recovering addicts, kitchen workers, administrators — were killed when Pakistan struck the Omid Drug Rehabilitation Hospital, in what the UN and human rights investigators are calling a possible war crime. Pakistan insists it targeted militant infrastructure; the families of the dead insist they buried fathers, brothers, and sons. The attack has torn open not only a hillside cemetery in Kabul, but the fragile hope that Afghanistan's long season of suffering had finally begun to pass.
- Three bombs fell on a known, UN-supported rehabilitation hospital at night, killing at least 269 people in Afghanistan's deadliest single attack in recent memory.
- Patient records burned with the wooden buildings, leaving families to move from hospital to hospital, sifting through photographs of charred and dismembered bodies to find their dead.
- Pakistan's military claims the centre housed suicide bomber trainees, but relatives of recovering addicts, cooks, and office workers reject this account as a lie told over mass graves.
- UN investigators and Human Rights Watch have called the strike a possible war crime, while the Taliban government demands international prosecution — though affected families hold little hope of justice.
- The attack has shattered a fragile post-2021 stability, exposing a deepening armed conflict between Pakistan and Afghanistan that threatens to pull the region back toward open war.
Masooda climbs a hillside cemetery in Kabul searching for her brother. Mirwais was twenty-four, a pharmacist student before addiction took hold, and had been a patient at the Omid Drug Rehabilitation Hospital for ten days when three Pakistani bombs destroyed it on the night of March 16th. She finds him in a mass grave, identifiable only by a birthmark on what remains of his torso.
At around 8:50 p.m., the strikes hit a hangar where newly admitted patients slept, then containers and wooden structures housing others. The buildings caught fire. Shrapnel wounds and severe burns were the leading causes of death among at least 269 people killed — the deadliest single attack in Afghanistan in recent memory. The hospital was not hidden: it had opened in 2016 on the grounds of a former US military base, was covered by international media, and was supported by UN agencies. Fiona Frazer, the UN's human rights representative in Afghanistan, confirmed the site was well known.
Pakistan's military nonetheless insists it struck "military and terrorist infrastructure," claiming the centre was most likely a suicide bomber training facility. The families of the dead reject this entirely. Sediq Walizada's brother Mohammad Anwar — a father of six who sold bottled water from a tricycle cart — had been admitted four days before the strike. After the bombing, Sediq and his brothers searched hospitals for days, finally finding a photograph they believed was Mohammad Anwar: a body severed in half, identifiable only by fragments of clothing. "Not knowing whether he was dead or alive was so painful," Sediq says. "And then the agony of finding his body severed in half."
A doctor on duty that night described walking among the dead and dying, surrounded by the smell of burning flesh. Patient records were destroyed in the fire, making identification nearly impossible. Some families never found their loved ones at all.
The attack reflects months of armed deterioration between Pakistan and Afghanistan, with Pakistan accusing the Taliban of sheltering militant groups responsible for killing hundreds of Pakistani civilians — a charge the Taliban denies. Human Rights Watch called the strike an unlawful attack and a possible war crime. The Taliban's deputy spokesman echoed that framing and called for international prosecution. But among the bereaved, expectation of accountability is almost nonexistent. "We are an oppressed people," one victim's brother told the BBC. "May God bring the perpetrators to justice." For many Afghans, the bombing has ended the quiet they had only just begun to trust.
Masooda climbs a hillside cemetery in Kabul on a cold morning, searching for her brother among the dead. Mirwais was twenty-four when a Pakistani airstrike destroyed the drug rehabilitation centre where he had been a patient for ten days. She finds him in a mass grave—or what remains of him. His body was so badly burned and fragmented that she identified him only by a birthmark on what was left of his torso.
On March 16th, at around 8:50 p.m., three bombs fell on the Omid Drug Rehabilitation Hospital, located along the Kabul-Jalalabad highway. One struck a hangar where newly admitted patients slept. The other two hit containers and wooden structures housing patients, along with food storage and administrative offices. The wooden buildings caught fire. The UN later reported that shrapnel wounds and severe burns were the leading causes of death. At least 269 people were killed—possibly more, according to UN investigators. It is the deadliest single attack in Afghanistan in recent memory, surpassing even the worst days of the twenty-year war that ended in 2021.
The hospital was not hidden. It opened in 2016 on the grounds of a former US military base called Camp Phoenix, about a kilometre from the main UN offices in Kabul. International news outlets had covered it. UN agencies supported its patients. Fiona Frazer, the UN's human rights representative in Afghanistan, told the BBC the site was well known. Yet Pakistan's military insists it did not target a civilian facility. In a statement, they claimed the centre was "most likely a suicide bomber training facility" and that drug addicts were being used as suicide bombers. They said the targets were "military and terrorist infrastructure."
Families reject this entirely. The BBC spoke to relatives of more than thirty victims—recovering addicts, kitchen staff, administrative workers. Sediq Walizada's brother Mohammad Anwar had been admitted four days before the strike. Mohammad Anwar was thirty-five, a father of six who sold bottled water from a tricycle cart. He had turned to Tablet-K, a synthetic drug containing methamphetamine or opioids, not out of choice but out of desperation. "He didn't turn to drugs for fun," Sediq says. "He turned to it because of helplessness, poverty and hardship." After the bombing, Sediq and his brothers moved from hospital to hospital, sifting through photographs of charred bodies. Four days later, as the country celebrated Eid, they found a photo they believed was Mohammad Anwar—a body severed in half, identifiable only by fragments of clothing. "Not knowing whether he was dead or alive was so painful," Sediq says, his voice trembling. "And then the agony of finding his body severed in half."
The hospital's patient records were destroyed in the fire, making identification nearly impossible for many families. Some never found their loved ones. A doctor who was on duty that night, speaking on condition of anonymity because he had not been authorized by the Taliban government to speak publicly, described the aftermath: "I walked amid dead bodies looking for anyone who was alive, looking for people who were screaming for help. The smell of burning flesh was everywhere. I have never seen such a horrific scene in my life." The UN's report noted that "several bodies were unable to be identified because of the nature of their injuries or because they were reduced to dismembered body parts."
Mirwais was studying to be a pharmacist before addiction took hold. His sister Masooda had raised him after their parents died. "He was a simple boy who got into a bad habit," she says. Like Mohammad Anwar, like the estimated three million Afghans struggling with addiction, Mirwais sought treatment. He had been at Omid for ten days.
The attack reflects a sharp deterioration in Pakistan-Afghanistan relations. The two countries have been in armed conflict for months, with Pakistan accusing the Taliban government of sheltering the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA)—militant groups that have killed hundreds of Pakistani civilians. The Taliban denies providing refuge to these groups. Pakistan's top officials were among the first to visit Kabul after the Taliban took power in 2021. Now the two sides trade accusations daily and strike each other across the border.
Human Rights Watch called the airstrike "an unlawful attack and a possible war crime." The Taliban's deputy spokesman, Hamdullah Fitrat, told the BBC that "targeting innocent civilians is a war crime" and called for international investigation and prosecution. But among the families of the dead, there is little expectation of accountability. "We are an oppressed people," one victim's brother told the BBC. "We do not have the power to respond. We have suffered injustice and brutality. May God bring the perpetrators to justice." The attack has shattered the relative stability Afghans had grown accustomed to since 2021 and raised fears that the country is sliding back toward the violence it endured for two decades.
Citas Notables
My brother's body was in pieces. There was barely anything left of him to give us. They just found his torso. I identified it through a birthmark he had.— Masooda, sister of 24-year-old patient Mirwais
Targeting innocent civilians is a war crime. International organisations should investigate the incident and prosecute those responsible accordingly.— Hamdullah Fitrat, Taliban deputy spokesman
La Conversación del Hearth Otra perspectiva de la historia
Why does Pakistan claim the centre was a military target when it seems so clearly to have been a hospital?
Because admitting you killed 269 civilians in a single strike is politically catastrophic. If they say it was a military facility, they're fighting terrorism, not committing a war crime. The problem is that everyone—the UN, the families, the BBC reporters on the ground—saw something different.
But couldn't there have actually been militants there, hidden among the patients?
Possibly. But the families who brought their brothers and sons there for treatment saw only sick people. The kitchen staff who worked there saw only patients. The UN, which had access to the site, saw a rehabilitation centre. At some point, the weight of evidence matters more than the possibility.
What strikes me is how many of these victims were there because of poverty, not ideology.
That's the real story underneath. Mohammad Anwar sold water from a cart. He couldn't earn enough to feed his family. Mirwais wanted to be a pharmacist. They weren't insurgents. They were struggling Afghans trying to get clean. Pakistan's claim that addicts were being trained as suicide bombers is almost absurd when you sit with the families and hear their stories.
Do you think there will be accountability?
The families don't. They've said so directly. They're living in a country with no power to compel Pakistan to answer for anything. The UN can investigate, Human Rights Watch can call it a war crime, but without enforcement, it's just words. That's the helplessness they're expressing.
What does this attack mean for Afghanistan's future?
It means the relative peace since 2021 is fragile. People had started to believe the violence was over. Now they're afraid it's beginning again. The attack didn't just kill 269 people—it broke something psychological in the country.