Couple’s Wedding Targeted for An Islamic State Attack
Kabul: Mirwais and Rehana's wedding in Afghanistan's capital Kabul last year was targeted by an IS suicide bomber, killing more than 90 of their guests. The couple lost close family members and friends, and the attack took a heavy toll on their mental health.
This week marks the anniversary of the attack. For the first time, Rehana, 18, has decided to speak publicly about what happened that day.
"Every night I have nightmares," she told the BBC. "I cry and I can't sleep."
Crowds of people make her anxious, as does travelling by car. "Whenever I hear gunshots or explosions it takes me back to that day, and I think something will happen to me again," she said.
The relatives of some of those who died that day have raised the idea of holding a protest outside the wedding hall where the attack took place, to commemorate the anniversary and call for the attackers to be held to justice. But Mirwais won't attend, he said. His hands begin to shake at just the thought of the blast.
"Before the wedding we were so happy," he said. "All of a sudden it was as if we had fallen from the sky to the ground. We lost all our happiness."
The couple's wedding was targeted because they are from Afghanistan's Shia minority, which the Islamic State group considers heretical. IS militants have launched repeated attacks on the Shia community in recent years.
For Rehana and Mirwais, the trauma of the attack was exacerbated unexpectedly when some relatives and acquaintances held them responsible for the bloodshed.
IS, which claimed responsibility for the blast, is far less powerful in Afghanistan than the Taliban, but the group has carried out dozens of deadly attacks. In May, it was blamed for a horrific assault on a maternity unit in Kabul, where militants killed 24 women, children and infants. Earlier this month, IS laid siege to a prison in the eastern city of Jalalabad, freeing hundreds of inmates. The violence comes despite the group's loss of territory and the detention of a number of its senior leaders.
For Rehana and Mirwais, the ongoing unrest forces them to relive their own experiences.
"A few weeks after the wedding, there was an explosion in another part of Kabul, and my wife was so afraid she fainted," said Mirwais.
Rehana is now receiving rare psychological support, thanks to a Kabul-based charity, Peace of Mind Afghanistan. She said the therapy was helping her to process the confusion and pain of the attack and being held responsible for it. "It is good for me to least be able to share my problems," she said.
Peace talks between the Afghan government and Taliban are expected to begin in the coming week but fighting continues.
