2 siblings pass away a day apart

After the school was over, Aryan Ashraf Nafi went to check why his elder sister Tahia Ashraf Nazia was late in coming out. At that very moment, the training fighter jet of the Bangladesh Air Force crashed into a building of the Milestone School and College in the capital’s Uttara area.

Both siblings suffered severe burn injuries.

They were taken to the National Institute of Burn and Plastic Surgery. Nazia had burns covering 90 per cent of her body; Nafi’s smaller body was almost entirely scorched—95 per cent burned.

The two siblings were laid to rest side by side at the Rajabari Dakshinpara Graveyard in Kamarpara of Dhaka. Nazia passed away on 22 July, and her younger brother Nafi succumbed to his injuries the next day, on 23 July.

Nazia was a sixth grader at Milestone School and College in Uttara, while Nafi was in Class-III.

During her time at the burn institute, Nazia had asked how her brother was doing. Family members had assured her, “Your brother is fine, he’s getting better.”

Nazia took this to be true. But death, in the end, was the only truth that came for both of them. Only their grieving parents truly understand how unbearable that truth is. Their mother Tahmina Akhter and father Ashraful Islam remain speechless in the face of such loss.

After taking permission over the phone, this correspondent visited their home at Rajabari, Kamarpara, on Saturday. The children’s aunt Tanzina Akhter said, “We don’t feel like describing how the children’s bodies were burned and disfigured. We have no more demands. No accusations. We don’t want compensation or anything else.”

Anything that Nazia and Nafi wanted, they always asked their mother. She took them to school and brought them back home every day. On 21 July, Tahmina had picked them up again. Nafi had already come out to her. But when he noticed his sister was delayed, he went back into the school building to check. It was right then, before Tahmina’s eyes, that the aircraft crashed—an event that claimed both her children forever.

After the crash, the family searched at Uttara Adhunik Medical College Hospital. From there, they rushed to the burn institute and found their children.

Tanzina recounted that the room where Nazia’s books were kept had been accidentally locked on Sunday (20 July), the day before the incident. As a result, she could not complete her homework. The next day, after school ended, she was kept in “detention” to complete it. Had that not been the case, she would’ve been outside with her mother on time.

Tahmina Akhter is pregnant. The physician has given a due date in the coming month. Nazia and Nafi’s father Ashraful Islam is a retired army officer.

Tanzina further said, “Videos of that day’s incident are all over YouTube. Today (Saturday), we finally recognised the two burned children in one such video. It was Nazia and Nafi. We couldn’t identify them before. Their mother and father have stopped speaking to anyone after seeing those clips. They’ve barely been eating.”

Two women, whose children also attend Milestone School, came to visit Nazia and Nafi’s family. They could take their children home unharmed that day.

Along with other family members, they expressed anger that, even as children were running out of the school burnt and injured, some people were too busy filming rather than helping them.

“People even almost had a 'salish' in the neighbourhood to ask why we didn’t allow others to see the children’s burnt bodies. Most of you probably have children. Please try to understand what it feels like to be in our position,” Tanzina added.

Tanzina also shared that her elder sister’s younger son Junaid also studies at Milestone School and was injured in the incident. He was first admitted to the burn institute and is now being treated at the Combined Military Hospital (CMH) in Dhaka.

Junaid’s sister, Miftahul Jannat, a student of Class-IX at the same school, was also at Nazia and Nafi’s house. In a faint voice, she said, “It all happened right in front of me. I could’ve died too.”

From the time of the accident until the moment of their deaths, Tanzina remained at the hospital with the two children. Nazia was on the 7th floor of the burn institute while Nafi was on the 4th. It took a long time to find them, as their burned faces made them nearly unrecognisable. “It was Nazia and Nafi themselves who said, ‘Aunty, I’m Nazia,’ and ‘Aunty, I’m Nafi,’” Tanzina recalled.

She added that Nafi did not speak much at the hospital, only calling out for his mother sometimes. Nazia, however, tried to talk. She asked about her brother and why her aunt was crying if he was supposedly fine. She believed she would recover.

Tanzina is not able to forget how much Nazia suffered in her final hours. Her face had swollen so badly that her eyes were sealed shut. She couldn’t see anything. She kept asking her aunt not to let go of her hand. She asked for water, which was given after consulting with physicians. Still, she said it did not quench her thirst and asked for cold juice and ice cream. The physicians gave her painkillers to ease the agony. Her pain gradually subsided. Eventually, she passed away. The juice and ice cream she asked for were brought—but she never got to taste them.

“There was hardly any place on those little bodies where we could touch and comfort them,” Tanzina said. “All we could do was watch their pain from a distance.”

Inside the house, a yellow plastic toy plane is there in a basket of toys. Nafi used to play with it.

Nazia and Nafi’s grandmother, Najma Begum, said, “The children are gone—I still can’t accept it. How am I supposed to help my daughter come to terms with this?”