Bodies scattered everywhere, a ceiling destroyed by blast waves, classmates dragging each other to safety – survivors of a suicide attack in a study hall in Kabul described horror scenes after a typical exam.

Nonetheless, given the death toll of mostly women, students from the minority Hazara community were unperturbed by the obstacles to education in Afghanistan – they vowed to return to classes on Saturday.

“Education is our weapon and they want to take that weapon away from us,” said 19-year-old Wajiha, a day after escaping the attack that killed 35 people, according to the UN death toll.

“I want to study,” she told the AFP news agency. “It’s my dream and I will always fight for it.”

On Friday, a gunman blew himself up in the women’s section of a single-sex study hall in the western district of Dasht-e-Barchi.

Hundreds of students from the historically oppressed Shi’a Hazara community settled down for a test at the Kaaj Higher Educational Center when the attack began.

“We were sitting in the classroom and had just started our exam when suddenly shots were heard,” Wajiha said after revisiting the scene of the devastated classroom.

The attacker – a tall man in military uniform and holding a gun – kept firing, she said, forcing the girls to hide under the benches.

“After the shot, there was an explosion and the whole ceiling of the classroom collapsed, then there was complete silence,” Wajiha said in a choked voice.

Wajiha told her story in a hijab and gray headscarf and said she lost two of her friends and a teacher in the attack.

In the frantic aftermath, she saw her friends and male students trying to escape.

“I saw boys climbing up the site wall and girls pulling with them. I saw a boy who was injured himself, but he kept pulling out girls,” Wajiha said.

“I don’t know how I escaped from the classroom. I don’t know how I jumped over the wall.”

Arsalan, 18, writing his test in the courtyard of the center, saw the bodies of women scattered on the floor of the hall.

“It was horrible. There was chaos everywhere,” said Arsalan, who credits his survival to his decision to sit outside the classroom.

“I pulled two girls out but I couldn’t go on.”

Those behind the attack, which no group has yet claimed, aim to stop Hazaras from advancing, he said.

“They want to eliminate us completely. Why aren’t they attacking another community?” he asked.

The historically marginalized Hazaras make up between 10 and 20 percent of Afghanistan’s 38 million people.

The group benefited massively when US-led forces overthrew the previous Taliban government in 2001.

They were able to send their children to schools – including their daughters – and entered the political scene and the workforce in unprecedented numbers.

Recently, however, they have been the target of some of the most brutal attacks in Afghanistan, some of which are alleged by the Islamic State group, which considers them heretics.

But Arezo Jaghori, a resident of Dasht-e-Barchi, said nothing will stop her from seeking an education.

“We will never stop learning, no matter what,” the 16-year-old vowed.

“We are sad for those who lost their lives along the way, but we are proud of ourselves,” she said. “Nobody can stop us.”