I don’t care what your grievances are or what you think you’re fighting for, if you shoot up a maternity ward, it’s guaranteed that your movement is evil and your goals are illegitimate. That’s what happened in Kabul on Tuesday:
…three militants stormed a hospital in Kabul soon after 10 a.m. on Tuesday, shooting new mothers dead before the newborns in their arms had even seen the light outside the hospital. At least 15 people were killed inside the hospital — mothers, babies, medical workers, and one police officer.
As of this writing, the Taliban has denied responsibility and no one else has claimed this foul act, but it’s clearly some radical Sunni group.
The attack in Kabul, the capital, targeted a 100-bed hospital in the western part of the city, a largely Shiite area often hit by Islamic State bombers.
The hospital is known for its large maternity ward, which is supported by Doctors Without Borders. During the five-hour operation to kill the three assailants, Afghan special forces were seen rescuing newborn babies. NATO troops were also seen at the site.
The details are just as horrible as you would expect:
Crowds gathered outside the hospital and emotions ran high as they saw babies soaked in blood. A security official coming out of the hospital showed reporters pictures of the devastation inside the ward: mothers shot as they had tried to hide under a bed, a female nurse prostrate in blood, one woman still clinging to her newborn. “She was dead, but the baby was alive,” the official said.
The relatives of one woman who had given birth at dawn were trying to get news. The woman’s brother wailed and twisted in pain as other relatives tried to calm him. “Oh, God, oh God,” was all he could say as he kept crying.
“She had given birth already when the suicide bombers entered,” said Rafiullah, the woman’s brother in law.
A community elder came out of the hospital with a list of a dozen newborns who had been evacuated to other hospitals. As he read the names of their mothers — these had been written on pieces of tape on the babies’ stomachs, he said — and the names of the hospitals the babies had been sent to, a man from the anxious crowd asked about the mothers.
“Fifteen martyred mothers,” said the community elder, Abdul Hadi. “Their bodies are in the ambulances being evacuated now. We put them in body bags.”
Afghanistan isn’t immune to the coronavirus, although the outbreak there doesn’t seem to especially strong yet. In any case, they’re not experiencing any downtick in violence due to people staying at home or social distancing.
It was foolish to think we could bring stability to this region, let alone prosperity. But I don’t think it’s wrong to wish that some day soon Afghanistan will see peace.