LFT Kabul – Zubair’s Story

Story of Zubair – a young student who injured in an attack in Kabul

Zubair was a student of Kaj educational center who got injured in the last year’s horrible terrorist attack on his tutoring class where hundreds of young boys and girls were taking practice university entrance exams. The explosion rocked the center in September 2022 in Dasht-e-Barchi, Kabul, killing nearly 70 young students and wounding a hundreds more. Zubair’s feet and right hand were fractured in the attack, making his injuries very critical.

After the attack, Zubair was under serious medical treatment for weeks to get his wounds healed and regain his health. For Zubair, this was not enough as he had been severely traumatized on the day of the incident and experienced shocks. Thus, he seriously needed mental health therapy too to reduce the effects of shocks he experienced and gradually overcome the mental health disorder he had.

Fortunately, the LFT-initiated mental health first aid support for victims of the attack and their families did a big favor to Zubair. He displayed fears and disorders weeks after his physical recovery. Our mental health trainers visited him for many sessions, doing post-traumatic therapeutics with him to overcome the negative effects caused by the accident and enable him to improve his mental health. For instance, he showed symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorders (PTSD). So, Soman, one of our mental health trainers practiced with him some stress reduction techniques and skills for how to overcome it. Muzhgan, another trainer, worked with him on flashbacks, reducing destructive thoughts, anxiety, and deep breathing techniques.

Due to this support, Zubair, says mentally he is now feeling very much better and the support transformed his health and life as he has restarted his learning at a tutoring center.