Students who survived the deadly bombings outside a school in western Kabul on Saturday vowed to continue their education despite having lost dozens of classmates in the deadly incident that killed 63 people and wounded over 150 others.

Their families said that such incidents are an attack on Afghanistan’s future, and they dampen the students’ desire to get an education. 

The attack started with a car bomb explosion outside Sayed-ul-Shuhada High school as hundreds of girls were leaving the school, which is located on a hillside in the Dasht-e-Barchi area in Kabul’s District 13. 

The surviving students said the only way to defeat Afghanistan’s enemies is through education. 

“We will resume from where we fall… No one and nothing will impede us from getting an education,” said Madina Nekzad, a student. 

“I am very upset, but we want to continue on this path. We will never surrender,” said Frozan, a student. 

Mobina, a student at a private school in Dasht-e-Barchi who visited those wounded from the incident, said the pain of losing friends and families in such incidents is very oppressive.

She expressed her feelings by reading a poem: “We will enter the ground stronger… Our pen will be our weapon… We will fight them with the pen… I now have realized that they are afraid of us because they stabbed us from behind.” 

“We went without dinners to afford money for their books and notebooks so they could one day support us. But now what will be our chances for the future be in sending them to school?" asked a teacher. 

Victims’ families said that the attack on children and innocent teenagers is not condoned by any religion. 

“What was their sin? What law has allowed such a massacre?” asked a relative of the victims. 

This comes as a car bomb attack killed dozens of students in Logar province last week, leading President Ghani to say that education in the country is under attack.