Still no justice a year after Afghan hospital massacre

KABUL: It has been a year since Atiqullah Tanha’s wife was murdered during a cold-blooded killing spree at a Kabul maternity ward, leaving their twin daughters motherless. “They cry a lot at night,” Tanha said, saying the children are frequently unwell. “The doctor says mother’s milk would have helped prevent most of the health issues.” Even in a war-weary nation already deeply scarred by decades of conflict, the massacre of 16 mothers and mothers-to-be in western Kabul’s Dasht-e-Barchi neighborhood caused horror.

International groups issued bold statements of condemnation, while Afghan politicians decried the violence and promised justice, though the assault-which killed 25 in total-went unclaimed. But, like with most attacks in Afghanistan, there was little to no follow-up. Only on Saturday, a series of bombs targeting a school in the same neighborhood-which is largely populated by Shiite Hazaras-killed more than 50 people, most of them schoolgirls. Few expect authorities to track down the perpetrators of the latest carnage-or prevent similar massacres in the future. And those fears are rising as Washington and NATO accelerate the withdrawal of their troops, leaving Afghan government forces to fend for themselves and protect the vulnerable population. Still, many had hoped the sheer savagery of last year’s attack would finally usher in change.

That May 12, three gunmen rampaged through the hospital, shooting mothers in their beds and forcing many pregnant women to hide in safe rooms, where one gave birth. One infant, just hours after being delivered, was shot in the leg, but survived. In the immediate aftermath several women volunteered to help. “Being a mother myself I feel their pain,” said Ghazal Sharifi, a lecturer, who along with her friends collects aid for the babies.

“No one is like their (real) mother... but we still have several women going to their houses to feed them.” Weeks after the attack, Doctors Without Borders (MSF), an international medical charity that managed the ward, pulled out of the facility.

— AFP An Afghan man and woman walking outside the “Barchi National-100 Beds Hospital” where an attack at the maternity ward in May 2020 left 16 mothers and mothers-to-be dead, in the Dasht-e-Barchi area of Kabul.