Death toll from attack on Kabul maternity clinic rises to 24
KABUL: Afghan officials Wednesday raised the death toll from a militant attack on a maternity hospital in Kabul the previous day, saying 24 people were killed, including two newborn babies, their mothers and an unspecified number of nurses.
Militants stormed the hospital in Dashti Barchi, a mostly Shiite neighbourhood in the western part of Kabul, Tuesday morning, setting off an hourslong shootout with police.
As the battle raged, Afghan security forces struggled to evacuate the facility, which is supported by the aid group Doctors Without Borders, carrying out babies and frantic young mothers.
Interior Ministry spokesman Tareq Arian said Tuesday that 16 people were killed in the attack and over 100 women and babies were evacuated from the building under fire.
The new death toll of 24 came from Wahid Majroh, the deputy public health minister, who spoke at a press conference Wednesday. He said 16 were wounded in the attack.
Of those evacuated, 21 newborn babies were initially brought to Kabul's Ataturk Hospital, where physician Sayed Fared said staff were providing medical care.
One newborn baby had a fractured bone and we referred that baby to the Indira Gandhi Children's hospital," he told The Associated Press. The other 20 babies are hospitalized here and are in good health and under our observation.
Outside Ataturk Hospital, anxious relatives waited for news.
Qurban Ali, a 27-year-old father, came to see his newborn daughter Bakhtawar who was among those evacuated from Dashti Barchi. His name was on a wristband the baby was given after she was born early Tuesday, a preterm baby.
Ali said he was watching TV when he heard about the hospital attack.
I immediately rushed to the hospital, got there but couldn't find my wife or the baby, he said.
His wife called him a short while later, crying and saying she had managed to flee the attack but couldn't recover their baby. The two rushed to Ataturk Hospital after hearing the babies were evacuated there, and to their relief, found
Bakhtawar.
Thank God ... my child and my wife both are unhurt, said Ali.
But others were not so fortunate. The family of 35-yearold nurse Maryam Noorzada, who worked at Dashti Barchi with Doctors Without Borders, also known by their French acronym MSF, could not find her after searching all of Kabul hospitals.
Her brother-in-law, Mahdi Jafari, his eyes filled with tears, told the AP the family would give DNA samples to see if the single charred, unclaimed body remaining at the morgue after the attack was her.
No one claimed responsibility for the attack but the Taliban insisted they were not involved. In the past, most attacks in Dashti Barchi, home to the minority Shiite Hazara community, were carried out by the Islamic State group.