Evening in Kabul carries a particular rhythm, especially in the days of Ramadan, when the city pauses between hunger and relief, between light fading and lamps returning. It is a time marked by breath—the first sip of water, the murmur of prayer, the quiet settling of bodies at rest.
On one such evening, that rhythm fractured.
At a rehabilitation hospital on the outskirts of the city, where thousands had gathered not for urgency but for recovery, the air shifted without warning. Explosions followed—three, witnesses would later say—each one collapsing not only walls but the fragile sense of enclosure that hospitals are meant to provide. In the moments after, fire replaced silence, and the sky, once dim with dusk, brightened with something harsher.
By morning, the work had changed. Rescue teams moved through the remains, not in haste but with the careful persistence that follows catastrophe. Concrete slabs were lifted piece by piece. Dust settled and rose again. Beneath it, bodies were found—some immediately visible, others still hidden, waiting beneath layers of debris.
The hospital, known as the Omid Addiction Treatment Center, had housed thousands of patients undergoing treatment, many of them in shared dormitories or repurposed structures. It was a place defined not by urgency but by duration, where recovery was measured in days and months rather than minutes. That sense of time collapsed in a single night.
Casualty figures remain uncertain, shifting between accounts. Afghan authorities have reported more than 400 dead and over 250 injured, while the United Nations has offered a lower but still severe estimate of at least 143 fatalities and more than 100 wounded. The difference in numbers has not altered the visible scale of loss—rows of bodies, many unidentified, and families searching in the absence of clear records.
Survivors speak not in full narratives but in fragments. A man recalling the sudden spread of fire. Another describing rooms collapsing inward. An ambulance driver returning repeatedly to the site, each time finding more to carry away. Around them, the physical traces remain: blackened walls, scattered belongings, beds left partially intact beneath open sky.
Responsibility for the strike remains contested. Afghan officials have attributed the attack to Pakistan, describing it as a strike on a civilian medical facility. Pakistan has denied targeting a hospital, stating that its operations were aimed at militant infrastructure and military sites.
Beyond the immediate destruction, the event has settled into a wider tension already present between the two countries. What had been a series of cross-border accusations and limited strikes has now taken on a different scale—one in which civilian spaces and essential institutions appear increasingly exposed.
There are, still, the quieter images. Families gathered at the edge of rubble, calling names into spaces that no longer answer. Workers pausing, briefly, before returning to lift another piece of concrete. The long, unhurried process of accounting for loss, where certainty arrives slowly, if at all.
Rescue operations have continued in Kabul following the airstrike on the Omid Addiction Treatment Hospital. Authorities say hundreds were killed and many more injured, though casualty figures remain disputed. Afghanistan has blamed Pakistan for the strike, while Pakistan denies targeting civilian infrastructure and maintains it struck militant sites. A temporary pause in hostilities has since been announced, as international organizations call for an independent investigation into the incident and urge restraint from both sides.
AI Image Disclaimer
Visuals are AI-generated and serve as conceptual representations.
Source Check
Reuters Associated Press Al Jazeera The Guardian The Washington Post