NEW YORK/KABUL, MAY 13, 2020—The international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is devastated by yesterday’s sickening attack on pregnant women, mothers, and their babies receiving care at our maternity ward in Dasht-e-Barchi hospital in Kabul, Afghanistan.
While these pregnant women and babies were in one of life’s most vulnerable states, an unknown number of assailants stormed the maternity hospital and unleashed a series of explosions and gunfire that lasted for hours.
MSF condemns this senseless act of cowardly violence, which has cost the lives of many people and deprived women and children in Kabul of a fundamental health care service, in a context where access to essential care is already limited. The maternity hospital is located in an area of western Kabul with a population of more than 1.5 million people.