I called home again, I was worried

Narrator: Ahmad (brother)

Victim: Ghulam Ali Alizada

Date of the incident: 23 July 2016

Location of the incident: Dehmazang, Kabul City

I am Ahmad, Ghulam Ali’s brother. We are from Bahador, a village in the Nawur district of Ghazni province. The martyr was also born in this province. When the Dehmazang incident happened, I was living in Iran. I was following the news on a Friday when it was said that the demonstration scheduled for the next day had been cancelled. As on every other day, I watched the news and went to work on the Saturday. I was at work when my employer told me that there had been a suicide attack on demonstrators in Kabul. I called Ghulam Ali immediately but he didn’t answer his phone. I called him again but this time someone else picked up his phone. I asked him where Ghulam Ali was. He said, "Ali is wounded and is now in hospital but he is not in a critical condition. His leg has been slightly injured." My heart was still restless and I called home but my father did not know anything. Only my little brother knew about the incident and he had not yet told my father anything. He was waiting for the situation to calm down. I called Ghulam Ali again and the same boy answered again. The boy said that he was in Musalla and Ghulam Ali was good and safe and swore that he was not lying. My father called me at 8 o’clock and told me that he was going to Kabul because Ghulam Ali was injured. When he arrived there, he searched several hospitals for him but did not find him. My father went to the 400-bed hospital but they did not let him in. Ghulam Ali’s name was on the hospital’s list of wounded. After my father insisted that he be let in, the doctors told him that Ghulam Ali is good, that it is not time for a visit, and that he should wait outside. At about 2 o’clock, they called my father to go inside. Before he could see Ghulam Ali, they told him that Ghulam Ali had been martyred.

After a few minutes, they received Ghulam Ali’s body from the hospital and took it to Musalla. When they took Ghulam Ali from Musalla to Ghazni, no one told my mother anything. The only thing they told her is that he has been injured and hospitalized and that no visitors were allowed. There is a mosque near our house. People gather in the alley and at the mosque. They asked my mother to go to the mosque. She responded to them, asking what would she do at the mosque while her son is injured. Then they inform my mother of his martyrdom, and she passed out instantly. My other brother who lived in Nawur was not aware of the incident either. They called him to go home, and he also arrived home.

The day after the incident, I called home from Iran to check up on Ghulam Ali. They said that he was good and that my mother had gone to Kabul to be by my brother’s side. They told me not to worry as he was good. But I was indeed worried, and so I called home again after a while and asked them to send me a photo of Ghulam Ali. They made some excuse that the doctors did not allow them to take photos. I waited for a while and called them again, and this time they told me he had been taken to India for treatment. I was still in Iran and could not do anything but wait for them to report my brother’s condition to me. It was very hard for me to stay for 20 days in Iran without knowing. In the end, I ran out of patience and left my work there and returned to Afghanistan. I arrived home at night and felt the atmosphere of grief at home. My other brother was not in Ghazni either. When I asked about him, they told me he had gone to Kabul to be at Ghulam Ali’s side. The next morning, people came to visit me. I decided to go to Kabul to see my brother in-person, but my nephews gathered in our house and said that Ghulam Ali had been martyred, asking me where was I going, and told me that I should stay there.

For the Eid of Ramadan (Eid ul-Fitr) holidays, Ghulam Ali had gone home to be with my parents. He called me and asked when I would be coming home as our parents had become very old and there was no one by their side at home, as he had to return to Kabul after the holidays because he had many classes and could not travel back and forth on that dangerous route every week. I assured him that I would go home in the fall, in the month of Mizan (September-October), and he was very happy at that, and said his classes would also finish by then and he too would come home. On Friday, he reached Kabul, travelling back from Ghazni, and on Saturday he participated in the demonstration. Unfortunately, this ominous incident happened to him and left us in grief forever. He was a well-behaved and sociable boy and when he came home in the winter, he would teach the children in our area. All the local people loved him and still speak highly of him.