AFGHANISTAN: BOMB IN KABUL MOSQUE, EMERGENCY ADMITS SEVEN PATIENTS EMERGENCY: “LITTLE CHANGE DESPITE PEACE AGREEMENTS”

An explosion hit the Sher Shah Suri mosque in the west of Kabul today during Friday prayers.

“The bomb resulted in four deaths, including the mosque’s Imam. EMERGENCY’s Kabul Surgical Centre for War Victims received seven patients, two of whom had serious injuries,” says Marco Puntin, EMERGENCY Programme Coordinator.

Although the number of civilians killed and injured by conflict in the first three months of 2020 was the lowest since 2012, according to UNAMA, violence increased sharply during March, and the number civilians killed by anti-government forces is now up by 22% compared to the first four months of 2019.

In recent weeks, Kabul has been shaken by a series of attacks.

“Despite the peace agreements in late February, there has been little change. The war continues. We have three hospitals, two of which perform war surgery, and we continue to see wounded patients arriving from all the provinces in which we operate. This latest explosion took place just ten days after a bomb was detonated in another mosque in the south of the city, also killing the local Imam in that case, and causing several injuries,” says Marco Puntin.

EMERGENCY has been present in Kabul since 2001 with a Surgical Centre providing treatment to war victims. In the first four months of 2020, it admitted 867 war wounded patients.