Kabul Hospital Survivor Describes ‘Doomsday’ Scene After Pakistani Airstrike

A 50-year-old man was the sole survivor among 26 roommates at a Kabul drug rehabilitation center hit by Pakistani airstrikes Monday night. Afghan Taliban officials report at least 400 deaths and 250 injuries, though Pakistan denies targeting the medical facility.

A survivor of Monday night’s devastating airstrike in Kabul has described watching helplessly as flames consumed his fellow patients at a drug rehabilitation facility, calling the horrific scene “doomsday.”

Ahmad, a 50-year-old patient who also worked as a volunteer security guard at the hospital, was the lone survivor among 26 men sharing his dormitory when Pakistani forces launched their attack. The men had just finished evening prayers and gathered in their shared living space when the strikes began.

“The whole place caught fire. It was like doomsday,” Ahmad said, identifying himself by only his first name.

According to Afghanistan’s Taliban government, the Monday evening assault claimed at least 400 lives and wounded 250 others. However, Pakistani officials dispute targeting the medical complex, stating their military operations focused on armed installations and “terrorist support infrastructure.”

The deadly attack represents the most recent escalation in mounting tensions between the neighboring Islamic countries during the sacred period of Ramadan.

Mohammad Mian, an employee in the hospital’s radiology unit, explained that numerous young patients receiving treatment resided in large shipping containers throughout the facility grounds. He said very few of these residents survived the bombardment.

“It was extremely terrifying,” Mian recalled. “Those who survived were the ones whose rooms were not destroyed and were fortunate. But the places where the bombs were dropped, everyone there was killed.”

Reuters journalists who visited the devastated site Tuesday morning found charred walls on single-story buildings that still showed signs of the intense fires from hours earlier.

Other areas of the complex had been completely flattened into heaps of brick, twisted metal, and splintered wood. Personal items belonging to patients – including pillows, shoes, and clothing – were strewn throughout the wreckage.

In Ahmad’s former dormitory, some bunk beds remained standing against walls, their bedding still neatly arranged, while the destroyed ceiling left the room exposed to open sky above.

Dr. Ahmad Wali Yousafzai, a medical officer at the facility that housed approximately 2,000 patients when the attack occurred, remembered hearing three separate explosions. The force of the blasts threw several of his coworkers from wall to wall, he said.

When fires broke out immediately afterward, screams and pleas for assistance came “from all directions,” according to Yousafzai.

“We were too few in number to save all of them,” the doctor added.

Haji Fahim, who drives ambulances, spent five hours transporting at least eight bodies to the nearby Afghan-Japan hospital following the attack.

“Now we have come again … there are still bodies under the rubble,” Fahim said Tuesday as recovery efforts continued.