On this day, 22 June in the summer of 2013, beneath the vast, icy walls of Nanga Parbat, Pakistan’s second-highest peak, a storm gathered. But this was not the kind that climbers feared. It was neither wind nor snow. It was terrorism.

On the night of June 22, the mountain’s base camp, a place of rest, became the site of a massacre. Gunmen dressed in paramilitary uniforms reportedly disguised as Gilgit Scouts stormed the camp under the cover of darkness. Ten foreign climbers and a local Pakistani cook were executed in cold blood. It was the first time in Pakistan’s history that climbers had been deliberately targeted this way.

The killers belonged to an Islamist militant group. They later claimed the attack was revenge for the assassination of Osama bin Laden.

The victims came from around the world. Three Ukrainians, three Chinese, two Slovaks, a Nepali Sherpa, a Pakistani cook, and a Lithuanian named Ernestas Markšaitis. They had come to climb, to challenge themselves against one of the most dangerous mountains on Earth. Instead, they were killed in their tents.

Sher Khan, a Pakistani climber from Hunza, survived that night. His story would later shake the climbing community. He had returned to Base Camp that afternoon, sick from the altitude, and crawled into his tent to rest. Hours later, he woke to the sound of boots outside his tent.

He peeked out and saw armed men carrying Russian Kalashnikovs. They were shouting:

“Taliban! Al Qaeda! Surrender!”

They dragged climbers from their tents. One of them, Ernest from Lithuania, pleaded, “I am not American! I am not American!”
It didn’t matter.

Sher Khan begged for his life. “I am Pakistani. I am Ismaili. Please.”
The gunmen ripped open his tent, pointed a rifle at his head, and tied him in a line with others — Chinese, Ukrainians, Slovaks, the Nepali Sherpa Sona, the Pakistani cook Ali Hussain.

The gunmen systematically looted the camp, collecting dollars, euros, satellite phones, and walkie-talkies. They smashed the electronics with stones, shot the phones with Kalashnikovs. Sher Khan was forced to help translate, forced to ask the climbers where their money was hidden. They obeyed, hoping their compliance might save them.

But this was never about money.

Once the plundering was done, the militants lined the climbers up and turned their faces away. “Go down on your knees,” they ordered.

Sher Khan and two other Pakistani staff were released at the last moment. “Don’t look up,” they were told. But Sher couldn’t help it. He heard the first gunshots and looked — saw the Ukrainian man who had been tied beside him slump to the ground.

The gunfire came in three bursts.
“Brrrr. Brrrr. Brrrr.”
Then the leader walked through the row of bodies and finished them off, one by one.
“Dun. Dun. Dun.”

“Allahu Akbar,” they chanted. “Osama bin Laden Zindabad.”
They claimed it was revenge.

And then they disappeared into the night.

Silence returned to Base Camp. Sher Khan and his friends rushed to cut themselves free. He found two walkie-talkies, then tried to contact Camp 2. No one answered. They climbed 300 meters up the mountain in terror, hiding in a cave, huddled together for warmth. They spent the night there, terrified the gunmen would return.

At dawn, Sher finally reached Karim, a fellow climber higher on the mountain. Karim relayed the horror to Nazir Sabir, Pakistan’s legendary mountaineer. Helicopters were already on their way.

Sher Khan would later recall hearing faint breathing from one of the bodies. Some base camp staff would later say they heard snoring sounds for hours — maybe someone had survived, if only for a little while.

Higher on the mountain, at Camp 2, Polish climber Aleksandra Dzik and about 30 others had been preparing their summit attempt. Aleksandra’s teammate, Ernestas, was among the dead. He had remained at Base Camp to recover from illness.

It was Karim Hayat who first broke the news to the climbers at Camp 2:

“Don’t come down. The Taliban have killed everyone.”

The silence from Base Camp radios confirmed their worst fears.

For climbers, death is an accepted risk. They face avalanches, storms, frostbite, and falls, but always at the mercy of the mountain, not at the barrel of a gun.

This was different.

When Aleksandra’s team descended the next day, the army was already there. The bodies had been recovered, but the blood, the bullet casings, and the torn-down suits still marked the place of the killings. It was the most terrible thing Aleksandra had ever seen.

Among the victims were Yang Chun-Feng, the Chinese climber who had ascended Everest twice and stood atop the world’s deadliest peaks. Igor Svergun, a seasoned Ukrainian alpinist. Rao Jian-Feng, another accomplished Chinese climber who had faced the world’s most lethal slopes. Peter Šperka, a Slovakian legend. Anton Dobeš, Ernestas Markšaitis, Alan (Hong-Lu) Chen, and the Sherpa Sona — all gone.

The Pakistani cook, Ali Hussain, was only 28.

A simple camp. A place of dreams. Turned into a place of horror.

The survivors were evacuated to Islamabad, but they carried the trauma with them. Aleksandra later said they had always believed they were untouchable, that terrorism was not their fight, that they were guests in Pakistan, safe in the mountains.

But the massacre shattered that illusion.

For Sher Khan, sleep became impossible. Every sound a threat, every room a tent, every moment a flashback.

The mountains are supposed to test your body, your will, your spirit. But this tragedy was not written by nature’s hand. It was man’s cruelty that etched this day into history.

And yet, even now, climbers return to Nanga Parbat. They return because the mountains are not just places of climb. They are places of memory. Of connection. Of love and loss.

And the mountain remembers. Always.