une 20, 2013 -- Updated 1835 GMT (0235 HKT)
Pakistani paramilitary soldiers
take positions after militants attacked a hospital in Quetta, Pakistan,
on Saturday, June 15. Several militants held hundreds of people hostage
inside the Bolan medical complex.
Quetta, Pakistan (CNN) -- The sickening smell of
burnt flesh still lingers in the air at the women's university. All that
remains of the bus students had boarded to travel home is a dark,
twisted structure.
Bombing victim: 'We won't stop learning'
12 women killed in Pakistan bus bombing
Pakistan hospital siege ends
The smell of burnt flesh lingered in the air after the bombing of a bus
carrying female university students killed 12. Militants also attacked
the hospital where the injured were being treated. FULL STORY
June 19, 2013 -- Updated 2105 GMT (0505 HKT)
Pakistani paramilitary soldiers
take positions after militants attacked a hospital in Quetta, Pakistan,
on Saturday, June 15. Several militants held hundreds of people hostage
inside the Bolan medical complex.
HIDE CAPTION
Bus bomb, hostage situation in Pakistan
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- Victims of bus bomb, hospital attack in Pakistan defiant and shocked
- Many of the victims were the first women in the families to go to university
- One suffering burns, a broken leg and cuts says she will continue her education
- Despite extensive injuries she manages a smile at the thought of becoming a teacher
The bomb ripped off the
roof, the ensuing fire so fierce it melted everything in its path. These
buses were provided by the vice chancellor to encourage families to
send their daughters to the university -- a safe means to get to and
from home for young girls in a troubled province. But the attackers
showed no mercy.
Books that were the path
to a brighter future reduced to ashes strewn across the floor. Pencils
and satchels -- the accoutrements of education -- destroyed like so many
lives that were lost.
Militants, including a
female suicide bomber, attacked the university bus on Saturday and then
struck a hospital where the survivors were taken for treatment. The dead
included students on the bus, four nurses, four Frontier Corps
paramilitary troops and four militants, police said.
I came across a page in
which one young woman had written an essay on Heraclitus, known as the
"weeping philospher." Her words on the burnt page so poignant after the
tragedy. She wrote about "the reality of change, the impermanence of
being, the inconsistency of everything but change itself."
Bombing victim: 'We won't stop learning'
12 women killed in Pakistan bus bombing
Pakistan hospital siege ends
Twelve young women are
confirmed to have been killed in this ruthless bus bombing, all of them
students at the university. Some of them were the first women in their
family's history to be sent to school and university.
Yasmin Baloch is one of
them. Despite her severe injuries, doctors think she was in a second bus
following behind the one that was attacked.
In the hospital ward
where some of the most seriously injured girls are being treated, she
told me how she and her family were so proud she made it to university.
Many of the friends she traveled with have been killed. She describes them as "good girls who studied hard."
Beside her, one young woman stares blindly into space, too shocked to talk.
Yasmin described the
horror of the bombing. "I was sitting by window when the bomb went off. I
had no idea what happened. Everything went dark. Then I realized I'd
injured my legs. I cried for help, hoping someone would save me."
Her leg is broken, she
has burns all over her body, shrapnel has cut her face. But like any
young woman would, she whispers that she is worried if her hair will
ever grow back. She lifts up the surgical cap and shows me.
As she holds my hand she
boldly says: "The people who did this are very cruel." And asks: "We
are just students - what did we do to them, to deserve this?"
Walking across the
hospital ground a lone woman approaches me. Tears in her eyes, Farzana
Pervez tells me her 20-year-old daughter is in intensive care. Part of
her skull is missing, but she thanks God surgeons managed to save her
life.
Farzana explains how
much sending her daughter to university means to the family. "We are
really poor people. My husband has worked hard to send our daughter to
school and university. So she could have a better future than us. She
was supposed to have an exam today." Her voice breaks. She asks us to
pray for her daughter.
Investigators are now
going through the wreckage piece by piece to identify the exact nature
of this blast. A senior intelligence official, who didn't want to be
named, told CNN it was a female suicide bomber that targeted fellow
young women at the Sardar Bahadur Khan Women University.
The bombing was just the beginning. A group of militants was waiting at the hospital down the road.
The Bolan Medical
Complex is the largest government-run hospital in Balochistan. Militants
attacked the hospital as the young women injured in the bus bombing
were rushed there.
Hundreds of people were
held hostage -- patients, doctors, nurses and survivors -- until police
and paramilitary forces took control after a five-hour shootout. Now the
hospital is sealed off and shut down -- guarded by paramilitary forces.
Quetta, Balochistan and
the rest of Pakistan is still struggling to understand the attacks,
shattering innocent young lives and those of their friends and family.
Across the city there is
a sense of shock, pain, confusion and helplessness. In a restaurant a
man tentatively asks me "who did this?" He seems scared to even ask.
In a culture where women
have long been oppressed, the university was a shining light -- a
symbol of hope and women's rights -- where 3,000 women studied.
Families have made
groundbreaking decisions to be the first to send their daughters to
study for a degree with the hope of a career and brighter future.
Vicious attacks like the
bus bombing are doing their best to set those groundbreaking decisions
back -- to ensure regret, to scare people and in particular young women
back into their homes.
Yasmin had been studying
to be a teacher and says she won't give up. She looks me straight in
the eye and says with confidence: "We won't stop learning because of the
people who attacked us. Education is everything. As soon as I get
better, I'll go back to university with even more drive and hope."
And for the first time in this hospital ward, I see a young woman smile.
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