Explosion at home rocks student abroad

Can you imagine being away from home, family and friends in some other country and then hearing there’s a horrible bomb blast just where your family lives? It certainly is the worst thing that can ever happen.

Unfortunately I came across the same situation a couple of days ago. It was a gorgeous Sunday morning. I woke up having a lot on my mind; actually I had so many fun plans that day. My host family left for  church and I took a shower and got ready for my former host mother to pick me up. Before that I thought of using Facebook to see how my family was doing back home. I tried to put the password into the login, but for some reason it wouldn’t let me in. I was so confused, trying my password again and again! At last, after trying it at least seven to eight times, it let me in. Then I opened my Facebook page and looked for my notifications. Things were great and I commented on a lot of my friends’ pictures. That was fun indeed!

Then I started scrolling down my Facebook page and realized that some of my cousins have posted pictures of a huge fire in Karachi, Pakistan. I was a little scared but things were still OK. I scrolled down a little more and then read a weird status. It said, “May God keep the souls of all the people in rest that are killed in the attack in Abbas Town, Karachi.”

What? When I heard “Abbas Town,” my mind was empty for awhile, my words disappeared as I was numb. There was a big, dark cloud in front of my eyes as I was deaf, and then a thought of my family came in my mind and I started crying and screaming insanely. Yes! I was in shock about the words that I read. First I thought I am still in some kind of brutal dream or it’s some kind of a nightmare. But things turned out to be real — unfortunately.

I further looked into the news about the explosion. It said there were two blasts and one was right near the street where I live and one was right between two huge apartment buildings — Iqra City and Rabia Flower — where half of my school’s students live. I also came to know roughly 50 people have been killed and 130 are injured and they are in serious condition. Both of the apartment buildings are destroyed and you can only see embers and ashes around. The bombs exploded as worshippers were returning from prayers in the Shia-dominated neighborhood.

I was glad when I knew my family was safe, but 50 people were killed. What about their families? Can you believe 50 families are ruined in a second? Hundreds of apartments are burned and there’s just blood and bodies all around. The only thing that is left is screaming and yelling of those families who lost someone precious among them, who will never come back, who is gone forever and who was probably the only one earning for the entire family of seven to eight members. Yes only those little kids are left behind who always waited for their fathers in the evening to come back from work and buy them some candies. Who is going to do this for them now?

So now who is going to be responsible for this gigantic loss? No one! As always, the doers of this action are successful once again and they must be celebrating. And we and those families, we are once again mourning and crying for everything that is gone.

I pray to God from the depth of my heart and from the depth of every beating and crying heart that God, please keep all of us under the shade of your protection and command. Please! Keep all the dangers, evilness and brutality miles away from us. We are just innocents and we want peace.

TAHREEM can be reached at tahreemhasan@hotmail.com.