There are a handful of children in Kabul who were orphaned the moment they were born.
Others, not even that.
The massacre of May 12 last year still shakes workers at the 100 Beds maternity hospital in the Dasht-e-Barchi neighborhood of Kabul.
During four hours, 25 people were murdered: 16 women in labor, two newborns, a nurse and six other citizens who were in the wrong place on the wrong day.
The head of infirmary, Abdel Habib Faizi, 49, still carries on his mobile the photo of a half-naked terrorist shot by the US Marines and other horrifying scenes from that day.
Although it has been almost a year and a half, in Dasht-e-Barchi, the stronghold of the persecuted Hazara minority, they do not lower their guard.
The last bomb went off on Saturday last week.
There were only two injuries, but it serves as a reminder.
The neighborhood, in the west of Kabul, is home to more than a million and a half residents, the majority belonging to that Shiite ethnic group of Mongolian origin that represents around 10% of the 39 million Afghans.
Since 2017, in addition to the hospital, there have been several attacks against a mosque, a gym, two academies or a public transport van with a balance of more than 160 deaths.
The Hazaras are in the crosshairs of the Taliban, among whom the Pashtun ethnic group dominates, and also of terrorist groups such as the Islamic State or Al Qaeda.
"All Hazaras girls sell your honor and dignity for money"
Accusation left on the Facebook profile of a police officer
On October 24, a kamikaze took the lives of 34 people, almost all students, at the entrance of the Kawsar-e-Danish academy, which this Tuesday remained closed. There, Shamsia, the young woman who obtained the best mark in the country last year in the university entrance exam, had studied. One of those who came across the carnage was Narouzi Shakrullah, who runs a pastry shop with his brothers, the back of which faces the alley of mud houses where the terrorist blew himself up. "The Haqqani network (radical wing of the Taliban led by the one who has just been appointed Minister of the Interior) or the Islamic State are trying to kill us," laments this 28-year-old Hazara man, tired of living where he considers the most threatened neighborhood in the capital.
Atiqullah Qati, director of the 100 Beds Maternity Hospital, shows the armored door of one of the shelters where dozens of people hid during last year's terrorist attack Luis de Vega
In front of the business, which he says they would like to transfer to go abroad, hundreds of stalls with fruit and vegetables turn the street into a bustling market in the shade of colorful umbrellas.
The carriages of transporters from the souk, cyclists, motorcycles, vans, taxis coexist in a surprising way ... Nothing reflects the cloud of permanent threat.
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But the weight of fear is very present. There are reasons. The Facebook profile of a policewoman who worked in the passport department until last month has been invaded by threats and allegations of prostitution. “With how many men do you have intimate relationships? Hazaras you are impure people. All Hazaras girls sell your honor and dignity for money ”, says one of them. She, a 26-year-old woman who prefers to remain anonymous, enters the rag and tries to defend herself against "false accusations" in an exchange of dozens of messages. Due to the degree of knowledge of the girl, the names of people in the department that are cited and other information, the person in charge could be someone from her work environment who belongs to the Taliban or is sympathetic to them. Other messages say:“You work in tight clothes and show everyone your body” or “In my family, girls don't have a job, they don't go to offices or make friends with anyone. They are at home like good women ”.
A few hundred meters from where the appointment with the police takes place, Dr. Atiqullah Qati, 40 years old and director of the maternity hospital for five years, shows one of the six rooms with a bulletproof door enabled as security spaces and that served as refuge - and they saved their lives, he says - dozens of people. But he adds that that attack left them without the vast majority of the personnel who attended the center. After the attack, Doctors Without Borders (MSF), which served as the framework for the entire structure, decided to abandon the project. This is how in the 100 Beds - although in reality there are 60 - it went from 420 workers to 60. Today they attend about twenty deliveries a day compared to the approximately 40 on average that they had before the attack. In Spain, four mothers die in childbirth for every 100,000 inhabitants.In Afghanistan, 638, according to MSF data.
Market in the Dasht-e-Barchi neighborhood of Kabul, where the majority of the population belongs to the endangered Hazara minority Luis de Vega
Of course, in maternity there have been two new additions in recent days: the supervisors of the Taliban government.
“They say they have 20 years of experience and that they have treated many wounded during the fighting in the mountains,” explains the director.
Qati says that only three days ago they received a payment, something that many other officials are still waiting for.
It handles this new bicephaly relatively well, although the guerrillas have imposed the painful toll of segregation.
From now on, women are only served by women and men by men.
There is also some surprise - and fear - at the removal of some of the security measures that had been imposed to try to stop terrorist actions. Entering the enclosure to the right, a huge barrier lies dismantled on the ground that prevented the passage of vehicles once the bulletproof gate had been passed.
In an office that would not be a bad thing to ventilate, the reporter is received by the two Taliban envoys to the maternity ward, Dr. Hasan Gul, 46, and his assistant, Abdelhadi Karimi, 47, who remains sitting Indian-style on the bed.
“
Welcome to my house
” (welcome to my house, in English), launches the first while shaking the visitor's hand, giving the interpreter who accompanies him to understand that he was going to do little work on that interview.
The stay is a mixture of room, office and toilet.
Under the sink, the everlasting rifle.
A
Kaláshnikov
, in this case.
There is no way they will be separated from him even in a hospital?
"It's like our business card," Gul responds.
Hasan Gul (right) and Abdelhadi Karimi, new Taliban supervisors of the 100 Beds Hospital in Kabul Luis de Vega
His years of experience are not limited only to caring for fellow Taliban wounded on the battlefront, he says. He insists a couple of times that among the forces of the Emirate there are people "highly trained such as doctors, engineers, military ...". In addition to studying medicine at Shaik Zayed University in Khost, where he graduated in 2008, he says he has worked in the World Health Organization (WHO) polio vaccination program. It makes clear the dependence of Afghanistan on the outside and recognizes that this and other UN agencies are "crucial" for the country.
Gul insists that he has asked that no maternity worker-or worker-stop attending his post and that they have his office open for anyone to complain about what he considers appropriate.
"We need everyone, also women", is his message.
But, clinging to a strict application of
sharia
, confirms that the order is to separate attention by sex.
Also that "there is great security in Kabul", where there have been no fatal attacks since they held power, and that is why they have decided to eliminate some of the measures such as the barrier.
Also, he adds, they have cleaned the entrance of vendors to facilitate the arrival of patients.
On the main avenue of Dasht-e-Barchi, the presence of Taliban patrols is rather discreet, less visually less than in other areas of the Afghan capital.
“It is very hard to come to work every day in a place that is under threat,” says the head of nursing, Abdel Habib Faizi.
About the new authority they have to deal with in a hospital, he implies that they have no choice: "I'm in a cage."
A man of the Hazara ethnic group drinks tea in the market of the Dasht-e-Barchi neighborhood of Kabul Luis de Vega
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