Peshawar school attack: one year on 'the country is changed completely'Attack that killed more than 140 people spurred Pakistan into tackling domestic terrorism like never before but trauma and grief remain undiluted
It only takes the crash from nearby building work to send the teenage survivors of one of Pakistan’s worst ever terrorist attacks diving for cover.
“Everyone is traumatised inside the school,” said Mehran Khan, a 14-year-old student at the Army public school in Peshawar. “We are all thinking that there will be another attack.”
A year ago on Wednesday, Khan was shot three times when gunmen armed with suicide bombs stormed into the school auditorium where several year groups were watching a first-aid lecture. Most of the boys were unable to get to the exits, turning the hall into a scene of particular horror. The following day, when television crews were allowed in, the hard floors were still wet with blood.
More than 140 students and staff were killed, many of them executed at point-blank range by gunmen who also detonated bombs around the school buildings.
APS reopened just one month after the attack. But pupils and parents complain of ongoing trauma for which many are still receiving psychological help.
The auditorium where Khan almost died has been converted into a basketball court, and a new hall has been built elsewhere on the school’s neat campus. Security is extremely tight with armed guards and metal detectors at the school gate.
“There are new buildings, my friends are gone and some of the teachers are different,” said Khan, who took eight months to recover from his bullet wounds and a broken leg. “Everything has changed.”
Many say Pakistan itself has changed. After the attack all schools were ordered to rapidly build walls and extra defences. To the consternation of some of Pakistan’s European donors the country abandoned an informal moratorium on the death penalty and has so far executed more than 300 death row prisoners.
Most observers credit the attacks with spurring the country into tackling domestic terrorism like never before. The prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, publicly recognised Pakistan’s longstanding ambivalence on the matter, vowing an end to the distinction between “good and bad Taliban”.
A year after the APS attack, the tide of violence has fallen dramatically. “There are no more bomb blasts, all the terrorists have left Pakistan now,” said Ajoon Khan, a lawyer whose 15 year-old son Asfand died in the auditorium. “The country is changed completely because of the sacrifice of our children.”
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http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/16/peshawar-school-attack-one-year-on-the-country-is-changed-completely
