New York
Baby Survives After Being Shot Twice in Afghanistan Maternity Ward Massacre That Killed 24
A baby which was shot twice in the leg during an attack on a Kabul maternity unit which killed 24 people including mothers, nurses and newborns has survived.
Three gunmen, suspected to be members of terror group ISIS, entered the building in the Afghan capital dressed as police officers before throwing grenades and opening fire with rifles on Tuesday.
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At least two of those shot dead were newborn babies and 15 men, women and children were injured. The attackers were later shot dead.
But one of the newborns, who was born just three hours before the attack, survived after doctors operated on her shattered right leg, the Times reported.
And during the attack, another mother was forced to give birth in silence while hiding in a room with other pregnant women and a midwife as carnage unfolded around them.
The woman’s husband, Rafiullah, attended the funeral before returning to the hospital to visit his miracle baby, upon whom he bestowed the same name as his late wife.
“On Tuesday morning, my world, my life, ended. I am glad my daughter is alive, but my wife is gone,” Rafiullah told the Times.
A dozen newborns were evacuated and taken to other hospitals without their mothers, whose names had been written on tape and placed on the babies’ stomachs, the newspaper reported.
“It is beyond shocking that innocent babies could be killed, some before they even had a name,” Yousafzai told the U.K. Times. “I cannot imagine anything more cowardly.”
Another woman gave birth silently while the attack went on around her.
She was helped my a midwife who severed the umbilical chord with her hand.
There were 26 mothers in the hospital on Tuesday.
Eleven of them were killed during the hours-long attack, including three in a delivery room with their newborn babies.
Five were wounded.
Another 10 managed to make their way into ‘safe rooms’, which are common in Afghanistan.
No group has claimed the attack, but the United States blamed the Islamic State group.
U.S. Special Representative Zalmay Khalilzad, the architect of the country’s pact with the Taliban, said in blaming ISIS militants that they opposed any Taliban deal and sought to trigger an Iraq-style sectarian war in Afghanistan.
But a senior Afghan government official said the patterns of recent attacks showed the involvement of the Taliban and the affiliated Haqqani Network, whose head, Sirajuddin Haqqani, is the deputy chief of the Taliban.
The official, who declined to be identified, questioned Khalilzad’s assessment as ‘premature’ adding that all the evidence suggested it was not Islamic State who carried out the raid on the hospital.
The Taliban has warned it is ‘fully prepared’ to counter Afghan forces.
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