(Newsweek) – Medical facilities in Afghanistan endured more than 240 attacks by armed groups in 2015 and 2016, resulting in extensive damage to equipment and buildings, deaths of staff members and patients and a worsening situation for the health of the country’s children. Detailed in a report released Monday by Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict, […]
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(Reuters) – Hospitals and clinics in Afghanistan have increasingly been targeted by armed groups over the past two years, weakening an already degraded health system, a children’s rights group said in a report issued on Monday. Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict said attacks had further restricted or even blocked medical care in a country where […]
(IRIN) – An Afghan father recently described how his 15-year-old son lost both feet after stepping on a mine. He couldn’t get proper care in Kunduz City – the only trauma centre there had been destroyed – so he took a taxi more than 200 miles to Kabul. By the time his son received treatment, it […]
(ICRC) – The new paediatric ward at Mirwais Hospital in Kandahar opened in September 2016. The renovated facility stands proudly in the hospital compound, among trees providing welcome shade from what has been a blisteringly hot summer. Even as the last drop of fresh paint dries, young patients are wheeled from the old ward into the […]
(Al Jazeera) – Fighting in the northern Afghan city of Kunduz has forced many hospital staff to flee, officials said on Thursday, further jeopardising medical care for hundreds of people. Street-to-street gun battles have continued for four days after Taliban fighters slipped past the city’s defences on Monday. The fighting has forced as many as 10,000 people from […]
(The Guardian) – It’s dangerous to be a doctor in Afghanistan. This is what the staff deal with most days at a hospital in the country’s north-west: physical attacks by patients’ relatives; gun-wielding soldiers inside the wards; and verbal assaults and threats of bodily harm against doctors and nurses who are only trying to help. An Afghan surgeon […]
(Medecins Sans Frontieres) – Today, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is remembering one of the darkest moments in its history. On 3 October 2015, U.S. airstrikes killed 42 people and destroyed the MSF trauma hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan. As we grieve the loss of our colleagues and patients, we are left with the question: is it still […]
(IRIN) – Civilians cannot access medical care in Lashkar Gah and aid agencies are preparing for a possible Taliban takeover as militants lay siege to the city, which is the capital of Afghanistan’s southern Helmand Province. Fighting since the beginning of August has displaced about 10,000 people, according to the UN’s emergency aid coordination body, […]
(UN News Centre) – An average of four schools or hospitals are attacked or occupied by armed forces and groups every day, according to analysis released today by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) ahead of the World Humanitarian Summit. The findings, drawn from the most recent annual report of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for […]
(Reuters) – Schools and health facilities have come under increasing threat as violence spreads in Afghanistan, making it harder for children especially to get access to education and medical care, the United Nations reported on Monday. Western-backed Afghan government forces are locked in a protracted battle with Taliban insurgents who are at their strongest since they were […]
