Born under slaughter in the maternity ward – NRK Urix – Foreign News and Documentaries

Zainab, 27, gave birth to a boy in a hospital in the southwestern part of Kabul on Tuesday morning.

It was named Omid, which means “hope” for dari.

After trying to get pregnant for several years, she was glad she gave birth to a young child.

An hour before she and her family were about to return home, three gunmen disguised themselves when police entered the hospital and began shooting.

When Zainab was in the bathroom when it happened, and passed out from what she saw, Reuters writes.

Murdered women and children

Twenty-four people died in the terror attack in the Afghan capital earlier this week. Among them were 16 women and two newborns. Six babies lost their mothers in the attack.

“During my more than 20-year career, I have never witnessed such an egregious and brutal act,” said Dr. Hassan Kamel, director of Atatürk Children’s Hospital in Kabul, where many of the babies who survived the attack were greeted.

One of the women in the maternity ward gave birth while the attack was taking place, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) wrote in a press release on Wednesday.

Both the mother and the child survived.

The organization, which supports the maternity ward at the hospital, says that one of the midwives died in the attack.

On the same day, 33 people died in a suicide attack at a funeral in Nangarhar province. An IS affiliated group has been accused of the attack, according to Site Intel Group, which monitors the terrorist group’s activities online.

No one has yet claimed the massacre at the hospital.

The Taliban have denied blame for both attacks.

We have four hours together

“I brought my daughter-in-law to Kabul so that she doesn’t lose the baby,” Zahra Muhammadi, Zainab’s mother-in-law, told Reuters.

– Today we must bring his body home.

Zainab had been trying to have children for seven years, waiting nine months to meet her son.

They were four hours together before he was killed.

– We call him Omid, hoping for a better future, a better Afghanistan and a mother who has been struggling for years to have a child, Muhammadi says by phone.

It affects the peace process.

Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani condemned both attacks on Tuesday and ordered the Afghan army to switch to an offensive defense strategy as US forces withdraw from the country.

– This is cruelty on a whole new level. Here you go to a maternity ward, take the lives of women who give birth and newborn babies, says Kristian Berg Harpviken, an expert in Afghanistan, a researcher at the Peace Research Institute, PRIO to NRK.

– No one could have imagined that such a thing could happen.

He says the attack could affect the US-led peace process in Afghanistan.

– One is the shock effect that makes many people think that there is little chance of peace. People who do this cannot speak. The second is that those who are initially skeptical of peace now have good arguments, says Harpviken.

The researcher believes that the Afghan government’s decision to go into an offensive defense mode is not necessarily dramatic, but it gives a signal that there is less optimism for a peace process.

– Ghani is also under pressure from his own skeptics, says Harpviken.

Increased violence

On Thursday, at least five people were killed and 20 wounded in a bomb attack in the southeastern province of Paktia, Afghanistan. The Taliban have blamed the attack.

– We are now in a situation where there have been many extensive attacks. There has been an escalation in violence from both the Taliban and the Islamic State lately, says Harpviken.

“It is not a good sign for a peace process,” he says.

IS complicates the process

At the same time, Harpviken notes that the presence of the IS terrorist group in Afghanistan further complicates the situation.

– Although IS does not have strong support among the people of Afghanistan, or is particularly strong, its presence fundamentally changes the conflict, says Harpviken.

– That makes the Taliban more cautious about committing.