WINNIPEG — Winnipegger Hammad Khan woke up Tuesday morning to countless messages from loved ones in Pakistan, his birth country, following a Taliban attack at a military school there.
“I couldn’t even focus at work. It’s so hard. I mean, I have a friend who is in the city and his son actually goes to the same school. I talked to him — his son survived. He was in the school during that blast. It is just horrifying; these people are savages,” Khan said Tuesday.
His friend’s son, seven-year-old Umer, fled from the gunfire and escaped the shootings that killed 148 people, mostly children, at a military-run school in Peshawar, Pakistan.
READ MORE: Pakistanis mourn loss of 148 killed in Taliban school massacre
Umer’s father told Khan the boy is so traumatized, he can no longer speak.
“He’s been broken, ’cause he’s seen other kids beside his kid, and they found his kid after about an hour or so. I can’t imagine the pain that parent has to go through. Looking for their child and not able to find him or her, it’s just unreal. I can’t even describe the feeling of it. It’s very disturbing and demoralizing,” Khan said.
Khan attended military school in Pakistan for 11 years before moving to Canada.
“I don’t know what these people think, killing a person. It’s a big thing –somebody’s dead, somebody kid is dead. It’s a huge thing and there are so many incidents, so many bombings, and it doesn’t seem to change anything. I don’t know what needs to happen for this to stop,” Khan said.
A vigil is being held at the University of Manitoba on Friday to honour the lives lost in the Pakistan attack.
Comments