Haikal survived for three days and two dark nights trapped beneath the rubble of his collapsed school in East Java.
Sidoarjo, East Java – Dewi Ajeng was at home in Probolinggo – a city in Indonesia’s East Java – when she received a chilling message in the group chat of her son’s school in Sidoarjo, located some two hours away.
There had been “an incident”.
The Al-Khoziny Islamic Boarding School had collapsed, trapping the young students, all boys, mostly aged between 12 and 18 years old, inside.
Dewi’s 13-year-old son, Selendra Haikal Rakaditya, was among those buried beneath the rubble.
“I just felt a range of mixed emotions. I was sad, frantic, crying. Then my husband messaged me to confirm the news,” she told Al Jazeera.
“I called my friend in Sidoarjo and told her to go to the scho
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