Hazaras Targeted In Afghanistan Yet Again

On April 19, 2022, multiple explosions rocked all-boys Abdul Rahim Shahid high school and the nearby Mumtaz Education Centre, both located in the Dasht-e-Barchi area, located in a Shia Hazara neighborhood of western Kabul, leaving tens of killed or injured. Hazaras are considered to be the most discriminated minority group in Afghanistan and have been subjected to persecution for centuries. On August 23, 2021, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum published a statement warning of the serious risk of genocide and crimes against humanity against the Hazaras. According to the statement: “As both an ethnic and religious minority, the Hazaras have long faced discrimination and violence. The group has suffered social and economic marginalization and waves of physical attacks.” As they added: “Hazara schools and religious sites have been bombed, medical clinics targeted, and Hazara civilians murdered by the Taliban or IS-K.”

Indeed, such attacks against Hazaras in Afghanistan are not new. For example, on May 8, 2021, explosions outside a school in Kabul, Afghanistan, killed at least 85 people and wounded over 240. In that attack, the majority of victims were girls attending the Syed Al-Shahda school for girls in the Dasht-e-Barchi neighborhood of Kabul. In another attack, on May 12, 2020, three gunmen targeted a maternity clinic in a Hazara Shia neighborhood in Kabul. They killed 24 mothers, newborns, and a medical professional. On March 6, 2020, 32 members of the community were killed at a ceremony. On October 24, 2020, a bomber killed 40 persons at an educational center in a Hazara neighborhood of Kabul. IS-K claimed responsibility. Over 70 were injured. The list goes on.

Despite the ongoing targeted attacks on the Hazaras in Afghanistan, the issue does not appear to receive enough attention from the international community. To address this silence and lack of political will, in April 2022, British Parliamentarians launched a Parliamentary inquiry into the situation of Hazaras in Afghanistan and Pakistan (the Inquiry). The aim of the Inquiry is to consider the situation of the Hazaras in Afghanistan and in Pakistan, and map the crimes perpetrated against the group particularly where such crimes constitute war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide; identify the assistance (legal, humanitarian, and otherwise) available to the community and its shortfalls; engage the U.K. Government and international actors with recommendations on assistance to the community; and identify justice and accountability avenues for legal recourse and engage them with the evidence gathered. Over the next months, the Inquiry will hear from survivors, experts, organizations assisting the communities and anyone else with relevant knowledge of the situation of the community.

The Inquiry aims to shed light on the situation of the Hazaras and engage the international community to act. However, as Afghanistan is not in the centre of attention anymore, unlike in August 2021, engaging the international community may be highly challenging. The lack of interest and political will to act will continue to let down this persecuted community.