From Maternity Ward to Cemetery, a Morning of Murder in Afghanistan- NYT

Afghanistan’s endless war never lets people forget that death is somewhere lurking around. From cradle to grave death haunts the people of Afghanistan with attacks on a maternity ward and a funeral.

On Tuesday, “three militants stormed a hospital in Kabul soon after 10 a.m., shooting new mothers dead before the newborns in their arms had even seen the light outside the hospital”, said the NYT report.

The attack killed at least 15 people inside the hospital — mothers, babies, medical workers, and one police officer.

In the province of Nangarhar, about a hundred miles east to Kabul, “a suicide bomber walked into the funeral for a local police commander. As hundreds of locals queued in front of the body for the final prayer, the bomber detonated his explosives not far from the corpse.” The explosion killed at least 25 and wounded 68 others.

The report notes, “What is crushing Afghans is not just the sheer brutality of the attacks with newborn babies soaked in blood and deprived of mothers before they have even gotten a name, but the failure of anything to bring a reprieve.”

These attacks come at a time when United States signed a peace agreement with the Taliban. An Afghan group associated with the Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack on the funeral. While Taliban dissociated itself, from the attacks.

The pandemic is already taking a toll on Afghan population. Further, the report highlights, “With 80 percent of the population living just barely above the poverty line, there is fear that the economic shock waves of the pandemic could bring starvation.”

Link to the original article for a deep read-https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/12/world/asia/afghanistan-violence-kabul-nangarhar.html