Three Spanish tourists and three Afghans were shot dead on Friday in Bamiyan province. Anne-France-Brill, a 55-year-old French woman, was sitting in one of the group’s two vans.
Hearing the gunshots on Friday, Anne-France Brill thought it was a party at the market where her group had stopped to buy fruit. This French tourist was on an organized trip to Bamiyan in Afghanistan at the time of Friday’s attack which left six dead, including three Spanish tourists and three Afghans.
Reality caught up with her when she heard one of her fellow passengers, a Lithuanian national, scream and when she “realized that she had blood all over her stomach”.
“She turned completely white”, and, in English, “she told me: ‘I’m cold, I’m cold… I’m going to die'”, says the 55-year-old tourist.
Anne-France-Brill was sitting in one of the group’s two vans when an armed man approached to open fire on the vehicle. “There was really blood between us everywhere,” she testifies.
Another tourist in the group, a Norwegian national, was injured. Their driver, more seriously injured, was one of the three Afghans killed in the attack, where three Spanish tourists also died.
Although the burst lasted only a few seconds, the time seemed very long to the tourists crouching on the floor of the van. The authorities reapplied “after about 15 minutes”, and “blocked” the street, explains Anne-France Brill, originally from Courbevoie in the Paris region.
“I cried like a madeleine”
The injured were piled into the back of trucks belonging to Taliban authorities and rushed to Bamiyan hospital and then to Kabul. The survivors, unharmed, returned to their hotel before being exfiltrated at night to Kabul, where they were welcomed by a delegation from the European Union.
Before leaving Bamiyan, the French tourist managed to collect “unfortunately bloody” belongings belonging to those killed and injured in the attack.
“But it’s so important for the families, so we tried to recover everything we could,” confides Anne-France Brill.
Among these objects is the backpack of a young Spanish woman, killed in the attack with her mother. Their bodies, and that of the third victim, will be repatriated to Spain.
Anne-France Brill and two Americans took flights from Kabul to Dubai. The state of psychological shock manifested itself when collecting the luggage from the conveyor belt: “I cried like a lump (…) saying to myself that’s it now I’m ‘safe’ (in safety, editor’s note)”, confides the fifty-year-old, who works in marketing.
This solo traveler was exchanging advice on WhatsApp with other members of the group before arriving in Afghanistan. But today, his conversations mainly consist of checking in on his injured traveling comrades. “Something like this happens to you, it creates bonds. Yes, that’s for sure,” concludes Anne-France Brill.
