A baby who was shot twice during the Kabul maternity unit massacre that killed 24 people including mothers, nurses, and newborns, has miraculously survived.
Last Tuesday, three suspected ISIS gunmen stormed the maternity hospital in the Afghan capital of Kabul, where they killed two newborn babies with at least 12 mothers and nurses. 15 others including men, women, and children were injured.
Officials said three gunmen who disguised themselves as police officers threw grenades before opening fire with rifles. The gunmen were later killed after they got into a shootout with security forces for several hours.
The newborn, who was born just three hours before the attack, survived after doctors operated on her shattered right leg, the Times reported.
The surviving injured newborn was among several of babies that are being cared for at the Indira Gandhi Children’s Hospital in Kabul.
Her mother, Nazia, died in the attack and the newborn was given the same name by her father Rafiullah after he had laid his wife to rest.
Dr Noor ul-Haq Yousafzai, a director at the hospital, told the Times: ‘We set Nazia’s fracture, so she will be able to walk when she grows up.’
‘But to see a newborn baby, just three hours old, shot twice. Everyone is shocked. This is inhuman.’
During the attack, another mother was reportedly forced to give birth in silence while hiding in a room with other pregnant women and a midwife, who helped severed the baby’s umbilical cord with her hand.
‘The mother was in pain but was trying not to make any sound,’ the midwife said.
‘She even put her finger in the newborn baby’s mouth to stop her from crying,’ the woman told AFP by phone on Friday, her voice was still shaking three days after the attack.
