Twenty-seven years after Taliban forces seized the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif in August 1998, survivors and families of the victims say they are still waiting for justice over what rights groups describe as one of the deadliest atrocities in Afghanistan’s recent history.
According to Human Rights Watch and the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), Taliban fighters executed more than 2,000 civilians — the majority ethnic Hazaras — in the days after capturing the city. Eyewitness accounts, rights group investigations, and archived UN reports indicate that thousands were detained, then summarily shot or beaten to death.
Some estimates put the death toll far higher. Local accounts and some Afghan lawmakers have claimed between 4,000 and 6,000 people were killed, while former parliament member Arif Rahmani said the number could have reached 10,000 to 20,000, calling it the largest mass killing of Shiite Hazaras since the reign of Amir Abdur Rahman Khan in the late 19th century.
“After the Taliban entered the city, thousands of people accused of being Shiite were arrested and either executed or gunned down,” one survivor told Amu TV, speaking on condition of anonymity. “In those first days, the streets of Mazar turned into rivers of blood.”
Civil society activist Najib Paikan recalled that on the first day of Taliban control, “people only heard gunfire and fear. When they stepped outside, they found the bodies of thousands lying in the streets. The scene was horrific.”
During thier first rule on Afghanistan, on Aug. 8, 1998, Taliban fighters broke through the defensive lines of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance and entered Mazar-i-Sharif. Reports from the time say the militants quickly overran government buildings, set up checkpoints, and began house-to-house searches. Hazara, Tajik, and Uzbek civilians — especially men of fighting age — were rounded up in large numbers.
Human Rights Watch reported that the killings targeted not only fighters but also Shiite civilians, including women and children, in what the group described as revenge attacks. Entire neighborhoods were sealed off. Witnesses described hundreds of young men being loaded onto trucks and later found dead on the outskirts of the city.
Alongside the mass executions, Taliban fighters stormed the Iranian consulate in Mazar-i-Sharif. After several hours of holding staff hostage, they killed eight Iranian diplomats and a journalist — an incident that drew strong condemnation from Tehran, the United Nations, and international human rights groups. The killings brought Iran and the Taliban to the brink of open conflict.
A Taliban official, contacted by Amu TV for comment, dismissed the massacre as “an event of the past” and refused to provide details. Taliban have never formally acknowledged responsibility for the mass killings.
Human Rights Watch’s archived reports say the Taliban executed detainees in groups, sometimes near shallow mass graves. Many bodies were never recovered, and families are still searching for loved ones. Women and children were among the dead and the disappeared.
Survivors say the wounds remain raw. “We are still waiting for justice, but no one has been held to account,” said one Hazara elder who lost multiple family members. “The world turned away then — and it still turns away now.”
Rights groups say the Mazar-i-Sharif massacre remains one of the starkest examples of mass atrocities committed in Afghanistan’s civil war, and they warn that without accountability, such crimes risk being repeated.
