Pakistani students walk as a soldier stands guards outside the Army Public School in Peshawar on Jan. 12, 2015.MOHAMMAD SAJJAD/The Associated Press
Pakistani children returned on Monday to the school where Taliban gunmen killed 150 of their classmates and teachers last month, clutching their parents' hands tightly in a poignant symbol of perseverance despite the horrors they had endured.
It was the first time the school had reopened since the assault and security was tight. The nation has been reeling from the Dec. 16 terrorist attack in Peshawar – one of the worst Pakistan has experienced. The violence carried out by seven Taliban militants heaped pressure on authorities to end the stubborn insurgency that kills and maims thousands every year.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Pakistan on Monday on an unannounced trip to urge the government to do more to crack down on militant groups following the Peshawar massacre.
Kerry is due to meet Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Army Chief Raheel Sharif as he aims both to offer sympathy and to galvanise Pakistan to combat militants who have used its territory to attack neighbouring Afghanistan and India.
Speaking during a meeting with Kerry, Pakistani foreign adviser Sartaj Aziz suggested that Kerry might be visiting Peshawar. A State Department spokeswoman declined to comment on Kerry's plans.
For Peshawar parents like Abid Ali Shah, Monday morning was especially painful as he struggled to get his sons ready for school, something his wife used to do. She was a teacher at the school and was killed in the violence. Both of his sons attended the school. The youngest was shot in the head but survived after the militants thought he was dead.
"A hollowness in my life is getting greater. I am missing my wife," Shah said. He said he had wanted to shift his children to a different school or city but decided not to because they still have to take exams this spring: "Everything is ruined here, everything."
His older son, Sitwat Ali Shah, 17, said that when he saw his brother break down in tears as they prepared to go to school he did as well. Sitwat said both he and his brother have trouble sleeping and often wake up, crying for their mother.
"Those who have done all this to all of us cannot be called humans," Sitwat said, adding that he still wanted to go back to school and eventually become an air force officer.
A ceremony was held at the school to mark its reopening, and classes are to resume on Tuesday. Security was tight, part of a countrywide effort to boost safety measures at schools in the wake of the attack. Schools around Pakistan have raised their boundary walls, added armed guards and installed metal detectors, although many have questioned why it took such a horrible attack to focus attention on school safety.
A psychiatrist in Peshawar, Dr. Iftikhar Hussain, said troubled parents have been calling to ask how they should discuss the attack with their children and how to respond when their kids have questions about the violence: "It's a time of great depression and tension for all parents," he said.
The government has stepped up military operations in the tribal areas, reinstated the death penalty and allowed military courts to try civilians – all attempts to crack down on terrorism. But in an attack on Monday, gunmen killed seven paramilitary soldiers in the southwestern Baluchistan province, underscoring the dangers the country still faces.
In Peshawar, media and vehicles were kept hundreds of metres away from the Army Public School, which had coils of barbed wire freshly installed on top of the compound's walls, and two helicopters circled overhead. The chief of Pakistan's army, General Raheel Sharif, was on hand with his wife to greet and console the students.
Some women brought garlands of flowers and draped them around the children. Passages from the Koran were read and the national anthem was sung while parents, students and teachers were given pamphlets about the psychological impact of terror attacks on children.
With a report from Reuters