Carnage in Afghanistan

Babies and mothers who have recently given birth are easy targets for gunmen who shoot point blank at them. It is unthinkable that any human being would commit such an act of heinous violence. In Kabul on Tuesday, gunmen stormed a maternity hospital and after a stand-off with security guards attacked nurses, women and babies present there. The maternity centre was run by the Paris-based Medecin Sans Frontiers. The reason for choosing the target is unclear. But the impact it has left on people who saw the scenes after the crime is not. They saw mothers hugging babies in attempts to save their lives. A few succeeded but died themselves. They saw nurses try to smuggle babies away and after the attack was over they saw the splotches of blood and the 16 corpses, two of them of newborns which lay there after the shooting was over.

We hope the US, which is attempting to broker a peace deal in Afghanistan, is watching the visuals. Surely they cannot be left unmoved by what they see on television screens. The Taliban, with whom the US is engaged in dialogue, have not claimed responsibility for the hospital attack. However, two previous attacks in Kabul, one only a few hours before the hospital siege and another series of coordinated bomb blasts in Kabul on Monday have been claimed by the IS. Allegations surfacing on social media suggest these were facilitated by the Taliban. One of the clauses of the deal with the US is that the Taliban, which control most of the territory of Afghanistan, will not allow the country’s soil to be used for purposes of violence. Prior to the hospital attack, the funeral of a police chief in the Nangarhar province was literally blown apart by a suicide bomber who detonated his vest at the site. Around 24 people are believed to have died, bringing the death toll in Afghanistan through deadly terrorist attacks to 40. A day before this on Tuesday, bombs were placed in various parts of the city, sometimes in waste bins, injuring citizens including at least one child.

It is obvious that Afghanistan is not moving towards peace. The persons responsible for this, the world leaders who sat in Doha for talks with the Taliban for months, need to step up and take responsibility. The people of Afghanistan cannot be allowed to suffer indefinitely. It is clear that the weak Afghan security forces are not able to deal with deadly terrorism such as that unleashed by the IS. Some kind of action is needed. Some kind of responsibility has to be attached. A country which has bled for decades, since 1979, cannot live if such violence continues. It cannot live if its babies are shot down even before they begin their journey of life. The situation is one that requires serious thought among all stakeholders. Suggestions and strategies are needed. But whatever these are, the killings must stop.