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KABUL (Reuters) – After struggling to get pregnant for years, Zainab, 27, gave birth to a baby Tuesday morning at a small hospital in the southwest corner of Kabul. She was glad and named the boy Omid, which means “hope” in Dari.
Around 10 a.m. (0530 GMT), an hour before she and her family returned to the neighboring Bamiyan province three hours away by car, three gunmen disguised themselves when police stormed the hospital’s maternity ward and started shooting.
Zainab, who quickly returned from the bathroom after hearing the commotion, collapsed when she saw the scene. He spent seven years trying to have a child, waited nine months to meet his son, and only spent four hours with him before he was killed.
“I brought my daughter-in-law to Kabul so she doesn’t lose her baby,” said Zahra Muhammadi, Zainab’s mother-in-law, unable to contain her grief. “Today we will take his body to Bamiyan.”
No group has claimed responsibility for the massacre of 24 people, including 16 women and two newborns. At least six babies lost their mothers in an attack that has even rocked the war-torn nation, numbed by years of militant violence.
“In my more than 20 years of career, I have not witnessed such a horrible and brutal act,” said Dr. Hassan Kamel, director of Ataturk Children’s Hospital in Kabul.
The raid, the same day that at least 32 people were killed in a suicide bombing at a funeral in eastern Nangarhar province, threatens to derail progress toward the U.S.-negotiated peace talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government. .
President Ashraf Ghani condemned the attacks and ordered the military to switch to offensive mode instead of the defensive tactics he adopted as US troops withdraw from the country after a long and inconclusive war.
The Taliban, the main militant group, have denied involvement in both attacks, although trust between officials and the general public has weakened. A branch of the Islamic State is also among the suspects: It admitted that it was behind the Nangarhar bloodshed.
WE NAME HIM ‘HOPE’
Muhammadi, the mother-in-law, said she saw one of the attackers shooting at pregnant women and new mothers, even as they cringed under hospital beds.
“We named him Omid. Hope for a better future, hope for a better Afghanistan and hope for a mother who has been struggling to have a child for years,” he told Reuters by phone in Kabul.
The gunmen turned to target the crib where Omid had been asleep. When the sound of bullets echoed in the room, Muhammadi said he passed out in fear.
“When I opened my eyes, I saw that my grandson’s body had fallen to the ground, covered in blood,” he recalled, crying in pain.
The Kabul attack started in the morning when armed men entered the Dasht-e-Barchi hospital, throwing grenades and shooting, government officials said. The security forces had killed the attackers in the afternoon.
The government-run 100-bed hospital housed a maternity clinic run by Doctors Without Borders, also known by its French name Doctors Without Borders (MSF).
A few hours before the attack, MSF had tweeted a photo of a newborn in his mother’s arms at the clinic after being safely delivered by an emergency caesarean section.
On Wednesday, the group condemned the attack, calling it “disgusting” and “cowardly.”
“As the fighting continued, a woman gave birth to her baby and they are both fine,” MSF said in a statement. “More than ever, MSF stands in solidarity with the Afghan people.”
Deborah Lyons, head of the UN mission in Afghanistan, condemned the assault on the hospital in a tweet. “Who attacks newborns and new mothers? Who does this? The most innocent innocent, a baby! Why?”
‘LITTLE POINT’ IN PEACE TALKS
In a statement, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Tuesday condemned the two attacks, said the Taliban had denied responsibility and said the lack of a peace agreement left the country vulnerable to such violence.
Pompeo also described the stalled peace effort, which planned the intra-Afghan peace talks to begin on March 10, as “a critical opportunity for Afghans … to build a united front against the threat of terrorism.” The talks have not yet started.
The Pentagon declined to comment on Ghani’s declared intention to restart offensive operations, saying only that the US military. USA He continued to reserve the right to defend the Afghan security forces if they are attacked by the Taliban.
Relations between the government in Kabul and the Taliban movement, which was ousted from power in 2001 by a United States-backed assault in response to the September 11 attacks, are already frayed, and Tuesday’s events will make any rapprochement unlikely. more difficult.
“It seems unhelpful to continue to engage the Taliban in ‘peace talks’,” Afghan national security adviser Hamdullah Mohib said in a tweet.
For Afghanistan, the hospital attack also risks further disrupting a healthcare network that is crunching amid the challenges of dealing with the new coronavirus pandemic.
More than a third of the coronavirus cases in Kabul have been between doctors and health personnel, Reuters reported in early May.
The high infection rate among healthcare workers has already raised alarm among doctors, and some doctors have closed their clinics. At least 5,226 people have been infected with the coronavirus and 132 have died, according to the health ministry.
KABUL MEDICAL COMMUNITY SHAKEN
The attack has rocked the small medical community in Kabul at its core.
The nurses and doctors who survived the hospital attack said they were in shock, and resuming tasks would be an emotional challenge in addition to the uncertainty caused by the pandemic.
“I couldn’t sleep last night as the terrifying scenes of the attack were still crossing my mind,” said Masouma Qurbanzada, a midwife who saw the killings.
“Since yesterday, my family has been telling me to stop working at the hospital, nothing is worth my life. But I said, ‘No, I will not stop working as a health worker.'”
MSF officials said they were working to try to normalize operations and that they had received support from other hospitals to treat dozens of babies and adults injured in the attack.
However, some hospital doctors said it would be difficult to move on.
“The gunmen blew up a water tank and then started shooting at the women. I saw a pool of water and blood from the small space in a safe room where some of us managed to lock ourselves in,” said an MSF nurse, who spoke to condition. of anonymity.
“I saw patients die as they begged and begged for their lives in the holy month of Ramadan. It is very difficult for me to work now.”
(Additional report by Charlotte Greenfield in Islamabad, Ahmad Sultan in Jalalabad; Written by Rupam Jain; Editing by Euan Rocha and Mike Collett-White)
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