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Foreign Aid doctors quit Kabul after Taliban raid
KABUL, May 19 (Islamonline & News Agencies) - The foreign staff of an Italian-funded hospital left Kabul Saturday, two days after the ruling Taliban armed force raided the medical center and arrested some workers, officials said.
Nine foreign doctors of the 120-bed Emergency Surgical Hospital left by road for neighboring Pakistan, western aid workers and Taliban officials said. Taliban Health Minister Mullah Mohammad Abbas accused the hospital's foreign management of violating its rules on segregation of men and women.
The French news agency AFP said they had persuaded the hospital's local female staff to wear western costumes, and to mix with men inside the wards. "Those in-charge of the Emergency Hospital have violated the applicable laws of the Islamic Emirate and left Kabul without the knowledge of the public health ministry," Abbas said.
He also accused the management of employing local staff and the head of the hospital without consulting the Taliban authorities. The Taliban religious police squads on Thursday raided the hospital, which only opened on April 25.
Western news agencies said around 20 armed soldiers forced their way into the compound, besieged the building and beat the staff, including one foreign doctor, hospital staff said. There was no independent confirmation of the incident.
Initial reports said three people, including two local guards, were detained.
The hospital's management discharged its 40-odd patients after giving them some cash and medicine as a mark of protest against the raid, one witness was reported to have said to AFP.
The hospital, co-funded by the Italian Foreign Ministry and the Milan-based Emergency aid group, admitted its first patient, a Taliban soldier, on April 25.
It is the first hospital to be independently run in Taliban-held areas of Afghanistan. Abbas said the hospital officials were warned more than once to correct their conduct but "they did not pay the least attention, nor they talked with the public health ministry before they left."
He denied reports that the hospital's personnel, including a foreign doctor had been beaten and harassed. The religious police's move was "principled and befitting," he added. Abbas said the Milan-based Emergency aid group will have to contact the Taliban Foreign and Planning Ministries to reach a new protocol for their return and re-opening of the hospital which was admitting war victims including its own fighters.
Gino Strada, an Emergency official last month said the Taliban had agreed that the hospital's head would be appointed by the Italian group. Emergency has a similar hospital in the opposition-held Panjshir valley northeast of Kabul. The Kabul hospital had 220 staff including a team of 16 western surgeons as well as Afghan women.
The Taliban religious students movement has enforced its unique interpretation of the Islamic Sharia law, that have drew criticism from Western human rights organizations and Western governments. Only three Muslim countries recognize the movement: Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates.
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