[1][2] Fighters claiming allegiance to the Islamic State took seven members of the Hazara ethnic group hostage in October 2015 in Ghazni and held them in Arghandab District, Zabul Province.

Local elders helped arrange for the bodies to be transferred to a hospital in territory controlled by the Afghan government.

[4] Nicholas Haysom, head of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, stated that the killings could constitute war crimes.

UNAMA commented that the hostage-taking and murder of civilians are serious violations of humanitarian law.

[7] The grassroots Tabassum movement started on 11 November 2015, when about two[3] to twenty[8] thousand mourners carried the coffins containing the seven bodies to the presidential palace in Kabul, protesting against the lack of security provided by government forces.