Death toll from attack on Kabul maternity clinic rises to 24

Officials on Wednesday raised the death toll from a militant attack on a maternity hospital in Kabul to 24, including mothers, nurses and two babies. A day after the shooting rampage, 20 infants were under medical observation, lying swaddled in blankets in hospital cribs.

Militants had stormed the hospital Tuesday, setting off an hours-long shootout with police. As the gunfight raged, Afghan security forces carried out babies and frantic mothers. The clinic in Dashti Barchi, a mostly Shiite neighborhood in Afghanistan’s capital, is supported by international aid group Doctors Without Borders.

One woman gave birth as the shooting occurred, the aid group said in a statement Wednesday. It said the woman and her baby were doing well.

The Interior Ministry initially said Tuesday that 16 people were killed and more than 100 wounded. Wahid Majroh, the deputy public health minister, on Wednesday raised the death toll to 24 and said 16 people were wounded.

Of those evacuated, 21 babies were taken to Kabul’s

Ataturk Hospital, where physician Sayed Fared said one infant had a broken bone and was transferred to a children’s hospital. The other 20 babies “are in good health and under our observation,” he said.

Outside Ataturk Hospital, anxious relatives waited for news.

Qurban Ali, 27, 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 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.

No one claimed responsibility for the attack but the Taliban insisted they were not involved.

RAHMAT GUL / ASSOCIATED PRESS Newborn babies lie in their beds at the Ataturk Children’s Hospital a day after they were rescued from a deadly attack on another maternity hospital, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Wednesday.