Families of children killed in Peshawar school roof collapse demand justice

Dawn · 16/10/2026، 10:10:46 AM

The families of children killed in a roof collapse in Peshawar’s Afridi Abad area called for “justice” on Friday, the day after more than 30 people, including students and a female teacher, were killed in the incident . “The parents of all these children must receive justice,” tailor Muhammad Wahab, who lost his 11-year-old nephew Hammad in the accident, told AFP . “I appeal to our rulers,” he said, adding that Hammad had been “doing well in school” before the tragedy. Dozens of people gathered on Friday outside the school to mourn the children who were killed in the collapse, which officials blamed on dilapidated infrastructure. One grief-stricken father showed AFP a picture on his mobile phone of his young daughter, dressed in red and gold, who lost her life. Another parent, Asadullah, said he lost a son, nephew, and three other close relatives in the tragedy. “The children were good students and often achieved top positions in their classes,” he told AFP . “They happily went to school every day.” Residents and rescuers described chaotic scenes in the aftermath of Thursday’s collapse, as people scrambled to pull children out from under the rubble. A man named Sohail told AFP that “everyone began screaming in panic” when his niece, who had escaped the building, arrived home to tell them it had collapsed. “When I arrived at the scene, I saw around 10 to 15 children trapped beneath the rubble, with debris piled up to their necks. We quickly pulled them out,” he said. Children try to peek through the sealed entrance of school a day after its roof collapsed killing several students in Peshawar on October 16, 2026. — AFP Soon after the incident, the provincial chief secretary on Thursday constituted a fact-finding committee to probe the incident and tasked it with submitting a report within seven days. Building and roof collapses are common in Pakistan, often attributed to poor safety standards and the use of substandard construction materials. The Human Rights Commissi