Grief and Defiance in Pakistan as Survivors of Taliban Massacre Return to School

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — The survivors of a massacre at a Pakistani school last month returned to their school on Monday, offering a grief-tinged show of defiance and apprehension.

It was the first time the Army Public School had opened since seven Taliban gunmen went through its classrooms and assembly hall on Dec. 15 in a rampage of bloodshed that traumatized Pakistan. New official figures put the number of dead at 150, with at least 134 of them children.

Army soldiers stood at the gates as children, many clutching a parent’s hand, streamed into a school where the authorities had worked hard to erase traces of the killing. Walls had been washed and bullet holes hidden, parents and teachers said.

But for many, the trauma was vivid and present. Some students traded stories of survival, marveling that they had survived the eight-hour assault. Others shed tears, describing empty classrooms where fellow students had been mowed down by Taliban gunfire.

“I knew it would be difficult for me to fight off the tears,” said Andaleeb Aftab, a teacher whose 15-year-old son, Huzaifa, was killed in the assembly hall along with most of his class.

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Students of a government-run girls school in a Peshawar classroom on Monday. Last month’s attack has brought an atypical sense of unity to Pakistan. Credit Mohammad Sajjad/Associated Press

Ms. Aftab, who escaped the killers by locking herself in a bathroom, said she had quietly slipped into the school early, over the weekend, to start grieving on her own.

“I am a teacher,” she said, “and teachers are supposed to be role models.”

Classes officially resume on Tuesday, and Monday’s ceremony was limited to students, parents, teachers and some military officials. The army chief, Gen. Raheel Sharif, visited with his wife and led prayers and the national anthem.

Among the crowd were young people still wearing bandages or casts — wounded students, some of them shot several times in the attack. Mothers sobbed as their children recited a poem by Pakistan’s national poet, Muhammad Iqbal, the general said.

Afterward, several students said they were determined to complete their education, regardless of the Taliban threat. “I am going to stay,” said Rizwan Khan, who lost several friends.

Army snipers perched on nearby rooftops, and the school walls were lined with thick bales of barbed wire. Students had been told to leave their school bags at home on Monday.