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The Taliban in Afghanistan signed a peace agreement with the United States on February 29 and stopped attacking American forces there.

But theres no peace agreement between the Taliban and the Afghan government which means fighting between the two has continued unabated, even amid the coronavirus pandemic.

On March 20, Taliban fighters attacked an outpost in Zabul province and killed at least 24 Afghan soldiers, which caused outrage across the country. One day later, an Afghan government airstrike in Kunduz province killed 13 civilians, including 10 children. Two weeks ago, Afghan troops killed or wounded at least nine Taliban insurgents in Jawzjan province.

This is wrong, and it needs to stop. Especially now, said Dr. Sayed Shah, a medic from Afghanistans Baghlan province. Shahs concerns are shared by many Afghans who are frustrated that the Taliban and the Afghan National Army are continuing to fight while the coronavirus spreads across the country.

As of April 15, Afghanistan has reported 784 Covid-19 cases and 26 deaths, but observers and medics on the ground believe the real number of infections could be much higher. A majority of the infected people are from Herat province, which shares a border with Iran, a country that has been hit heavily by the pandemic.

Overall, there is a shortage of coronavirus tests and ventilators in the country. The World Health Organization (WHO) has provided Afghanistan 1,500 testing kits, yet only two laboratories in the country are equipped with machines that can process test samples. And according to the Ministry of Public Health, Afghanistan only has 300 ventilators for the entire country.

International observers have urged both the Afghan government and the Taliban to immediately stop fighting and start working with the United Nations and aid agencies to improve access to health care to save as many lives as possible.

Unfortunately, it seems both parties are unwilling to cooperate. And theyre not the only ones: The Afghan government itself is divided, with two rival politicians both claiming to be the legitimate president of Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, the coronavirus continues to spread.

Every day, 50 to 100 patients visit Shahs small medical office. We try testing everyone who was in Herat or who used to have contact with people from there. We are also focusing on people with general symptoms, Shah said.

He described how he and other medics were taking samples of suspected infected patients and sending them to the capital, Kabul. But in part because of the ongoing fighting thats a very toilsome procedure, he told Vox.

The route to Kabul takes at least four hours just because of the distance, and includes passing through the mountainous Salang Pass with its decades-old roads. But often, even travel within Baghlan itself is virtually impossible because of the almost daily skirmishes between insurgents and security forces.

Baghlan always used to be a violence hot spot, but these days its totally unbearable. They [soldiers and insurgents] should lay down their arms and work as health workers to save lives, Mohammad Shahzad, a local merchant, told me.

On at least one occasion recently, power in the region was cut off due to clashes between Taliban fighters and Afghan soldiers in Baghlan. They endanger the lives of patients. It was not just us who lost power. Large parts of the country were affected, Shah said.

The Taliban denied that their operations caused the power outage and claimed instead that a power pole was damaged because of weather circumstances.

Attacks by government forces are escalating too. A recent airstrike killed two children in Baghlans Chashm-e Sher region and wounded several other civilians.

All of this is going on while physicians like Shah struggle to get the basic supplies they need to test and treat their patients. I dont have any tools to test anyone. Many local medics all over Afghanistan are in the same situation. We dont have a simple laboratory for tests, Shah said. Lets be realistic. We are not prepared for this crisis.

To be fair, few if any countries were adequately prepared to deal with this pandemic. But Afghanistans political situation made it even less prepared than most.

Incumbent President Ashraf Ghani and CEO Abdullah Abdullah both declared themselves the winners of the countrys presidential election in October 2019, and both conducted separate inauguration ceremonies last month. Several politicians and strongmen are reportedly busy trying to resolve the differences between Ghani and Abdullah, but no official word has been released.

Its not the first time this has happened: After the 2014 presidential elections, Abdullah disputed the results showing that Ghani had won and refused to concede. Fearing the collapse of the political system and the outbreak of violence, then-Secretary of State John Kerry negotiated a compromise: Ghani was declared president, while Abdullah was given the newly created position of CEO, a pro forma head of government position that does not actually exist in Afghanistans constitution.

But coming amid the coronavirus pandemic, the timing of the political chaos this time around couldnt be worse. Rather than working together to prevent the spread of Covid-19, Ghani and Abdullah are vying for power, each trying to depict himself as the countrys savior, the one best prepared to lead the fight against the virus.

President Ghani and his cabinet members appear with masks and gloves from time to time and have stopped hugging each other when greeting. They also mentioned the virus in several speeches and statements and called on the people to take the disease seriously.

In reality, though, neither camp is succeeding in providing an adequate response to the crisis. Additionally, the US government said it was cutting $1 billion in aid to Afghanistan this year, and potentially another $1 billion in 2021, after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo failed to persuade Ghani and Abdullah in a meeting in Kabul in late March to support a unified government.

Meanwhile, the Taliban has started its own anti-coronavirus campaign. In Herats Shindand district, which is largely controlled by the insurgents, a Taliban Health Commission gathered to raise public awareness and prevent the spread of the virus.

The spread of Covid-19 is an important issue for us. We have taken all measures to fight against it as strong as possible, and we also have a structured plan, Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid told Vox.

He said his group has already put several people under quarantine and that Taliban fighters are traveling to remote villages via motorcycles to distribute leaflets, soap bars, and hand sanitizer. We are especially focusing on returnees from Iran and told them that they should start a self-quarantine, Mujahid said.

With the countrys leadership bitterly divided and Afghan and Taliban forces continuing their bloody civil war, Afghanistans response to the pandemic has been dysfunctional, to say the least.

The spiraling COVID-19 crisis puts millions of Afghans at risk, yet Afghan officials are consumed with infighting and the Taliban with adversarial posturing, said Patricia Gossman, associate Asia director at Human Rights Watch. The two sides need to work together with the UN and humanitarian agencies to ensure that aid reaches the whole country, or a dire situation will become catastrophic.

Two weeks ago, the Taliban declared they would uphold a ceasefire in areas under their control if they are hit by a coronavirus outbreak. The group also said they would guarantee the security of health and aid workers traveling to their areas offering assistance to prevent the spread of the virus.

And, after days of waiting, Herat has finally been put under quarantine by the government. Kabul is also facing a shutdown, and for the first time in years, many famous places like the Mandaii, the capitals historic open-air market, are almost completely empty.

Still, many Afghans are not satisfied with the reaction from either side regarding the crisis and have decided to take things into their own hands.

Some well-known Afghan singers have composed songs about Covid-19 and shared them on social media. One of them, sung by famous singer Farhad Darya, was even used by local security forces to raise awareness.

In Afghanistans southeastern province of Khost, young activists are taking the fight against the spread of the virus seriously. People, especially in remote areas, dont know anything about the virus. They have not ever heard of corona. It would end in a catastrophe if they remain uninformed, said Shah Mohammad Takal, a local activist.

In recent days, Takal and other activists have reached out to remote villages to try to inform people, many of whom are illiterate, about the dangers of Covid-19. They also printed leaflets with symbols to make the information as comprehensible as possible and spread them in villages and on the streets in the city.

These efforts seem to be having an effect, as measures have begun to ban overcrowding in public places in several provinces. In Khost, several hotels have already closed, and all types of meetings have been prohibited for the time being.

Public health officials are also trying to scan many travelers coming into the city by taking their temperatures or asking them questions about their health. Over the past several days, 8,000 masks, soap bars, and blankets have been distributed to the public in Khost.

Still, Takal said, Its just a matter of time until we record the first infection in Khost.

Western countries are struggling [to fight the virus], so you can imagine how difficult it is for Afghanistan, Takal said. But we try our best.

Emran Feroz is a freelance journalist and author and is the founder of Drone Memorial, a virtual memorial for civilian drone strike victims. Find him on Twitter @Emran_Feroz.

Mohammad Zaman is a journalist based in Khost, Afghanistan, who regularly works for Afghan media outlets and radio channels.

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Coronavirus in Afghanistan: The pandemic hasnt stopped the government and the Taliban from fighting - Vox.com

KABUL, Afghanistan The scars from four decades of war are etched into the boxy apartment towers known as Macroyan Kohna, a dreary neighborhood built by the Soviets in central Kabul a half-century ago as a testament to modernity.

Like other parts of the Afghan capital, Macroyan Kohna has been pummeled by rockets, mortar shells and car bombs since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan began just over 40 years ago. But the leafy neighborhood of shrapnel-pocked apartments has been rebuilt and expanded several times over.

Macroyan, a corruption of the Russian word for micro-complex, offers a micro-history of Afghanistans four decades of war. Built for pro-Soviet Afghan elites, Macroyan Kohna today is a worn but vibrant neighborhood of middle- and upper-class Afghans who have reinvented it as a shabby chic refuge.

Yet among the original 1960s gray Khrushchevka buildings, emblems of violence are everywhere, some decades old and some as fresh as the latest car bomb.

There is the modest grave of an Afghan girl named Nahid, who residents say leapt to her death from an apartment window to escape a rape attempt by mujahedeen gunmen in 1993. Her grave is an informal shrine, decorated with tattered flags and banners and marked by a faded gray headstone.

Other makeshift graves around the complex were hastily dug in the early 1990s, when Macroyan Kohna was on the front lines of a brutal civil war between mujahedeen factions. Transporting the dead to a cemetery was perilous, so rocket attack victims were buried in gardens late at night.

The graves remain, some studded with small tombstones and others left unmarked. They are part of the districts landscape, like the rose gardens and the drooping laundry lines strung between buildings and trees, or the plaintive cries of vendors hawking yogurt and grilled ears of corn.

There are also fresh shrapnel holes and shattered windows from a car bombing on Sept. 5, cited by President Trump as the reason he called off Afghan peace talks. An American soldier was among those killed nearby.

Weve been scarred by war for all these years, with barely time to breathe, said Faroq Abdullah, an engineer who first moved into Macroyan Kohna in 1975, and whose apartment windows were blown out by the Sept. 5 bombing.

Mr. Abdullah, who is in his 70s, was granted his apartment by the Soviets, who had a strong presence in Afghanistan for many years before their 1979 military invasion. He had helped them install a central heating system a rarity in Afghanistan in 1968 in the first phase of Macroyan Kohna, or Old Macroyan.

Like many longtime residents, Mr. Abdullah has lost and regained his apartment more than once. He said the Afghan government confiscated the flat just before the Soviet invasion, when Mr. Abdullah was imprisoned for a year for anti-revolutionary activities.

The apartment was returned to him in 1981, he said. But it was looted by mujahedeen fighters in the early 1990s, when he and his family lived in the buildings basement to escape rocket attacks.

Many apartments were also seized or looted during the Taliban regime, from 1996 to 2001, he said. Some became offices of the feared Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, which doled out public beatings for women who lacked veils, among other punishments.

Mr. Abdullah said he lived in dread that the Taliban would discover that he had worked for the Soviets a crime punishable by jail or execution.

Today, Mr. Abdullahs apartment is nearly bereft of furniture. He said he sold most of it to pay to replace windows shattered by the September car bomb.

Macroyan Kohna was jolted again on Nov. 24, when a bomb nearby killed an American worker for the United Nations.

For a brief period in the 1980s, Soviet technicians and advisers lived in 25 or 30 apartments in Macroyan Kohna, said Viacheslav Nekrasov, who directs the Russian cultural center in Kabul.

Mr. Nekrasov, 65, who briefly lived in a flat there in 1982, said the first apartments were considered ultramodern and luxurious a special presentation project to promote Soviet expertise.

A lot of rockets have hit Macroyan Kohna, but as you can see it is still standing strong, Mr. Nekrasov said. These are very solid homes.

Since 1984, a fourth-floor apartment in Block 8 has been occupied off and on by Rena Baum, a Russian who married an Afghan student she met at a university in St. Petersburg in 1974. Ms. Baum, a silver-haired woman with striking blue eyes, waged a successful six-year court battle to reclaim the flat after it was occupied by squatters while she visited Russia.

She moved back into the flat in 2014 the only Russian in Macroyan Kohna, she said. She works for the government-run Radio Afghanistan, translating news on the Russian-language service. She speaks fluent Dari, a version of Persian spoken in Afghanistan.

Ms. Baums apartment block is hulking and charmless, and sometimes the electricity and water service fail. The flats are so small and dark that some Afghans call them pigeon coops.

Ms. Baum said she missed the Macroyan Kohna of the old days, when it was home solely to government ministers and professors. Now there are a lot of uneducated people theyre friendly, but I dont really get to know them, she said.

Wesal, 72, a retired army officer who goes by one name, has seen the complex expand through five phases since his father bought a flat in 1968. The latest iteration is Fifth Macroyan, a cluster of 18-story apartment towers now under construction, featuring balconies and large windows on a flat lot populated by clucking chickens.

Mr. Wesal said he reclaimed his fathers 1968 apartment after it was seized by mujahedeen fighters in the early 1990s. Any memories I have of those days are dark and sad, he said.

He said he was old enough to remember a time when Afghanistan was at peace.

Ive seen war and Ive seen peace, he said. I prefer peace.

Fahim Abed and Fatima Faizi contributed reporting.

Excerpt from:
In Kabuls Heart, Soviet Towers Harbor Decades of Tales - The New York Times

A minivan fitted with speakers drives through the outskirts of Kabul informing residents about measures to prevent COVID-19 infection. Similar awareness-raising campaigns are underway across Afghanistan. Watan's Social and Technical Services Association/Arif Sideqi

UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, urges greater support to Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, warning that leaving Afghans and their host communities behind will have a far-reaching and negative impact on global efforts to fight the virus.

The coronavirus poses a very great threat to developing nations. An outbreak would put extraordinary strain on already fragile local health-care services and likely result in avoidable suffering and death.

As the race against time continues globally, UNHCR appeals to the international community to boost solidarity with all three countries, and have at this critical time to prevent a larger-scale outbreak of the coronavirus among the most vulnerable communities.

Despite persistent risks and insecurity, Afghans continue to return from both Iran and Pakistan. Tens of thousands of Afghan citizens have crossed over from Pakistan to Afghanistan since the temporary re-opening of the border last week. From Iran, while the number of Afghans nationals returning peaked at some 60,000 in March, around 1,500 individuals are currently returning every day.

Afghanistan faces the prospect of overwhelmed medical and social services, with a dramatic increase in Afghans returning home, hundreds of thousands of people living in displacement sites and rising poverty levels.

Pakistan and Iran, which host some 90 per cent of the worlds 2.7 million Afghan refugees are experiencing immense strain on their health systems and economies. Lockdown measures and a sharp downturn in economic activity have left many Afghan refugees confronted with an inability to meet even their most basic needs.

For Afghan refugees in Iran and Pakistan, the impacts of COVID-19 go far beyond health. In both countries, those who are employed are commonly hired as daily labourers.

Amidst various levels of lockdown across the region, such work has abruptly ceased and refugees with no income and their hosts are now faced with economic threats to their survival.

Afghans in Iran and Pakistan widely report serious difficulties in paying medical expenses and meeting the most basic living costs of food and accommodation, leading to many being forced to borrow money.

Over the last month, Irans State Welfare Organization has reported a very sharp increase in the number of requests for psychosocial support related to COVID-19 in domestic contexts a critical trend that is being noticed in other COVID-19 affected countries around the world.

All three Governments are making concerted and commendable efforts to include displaced people in national plans and responses, but desperately need international support.

The Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, facing the epicentre of the outbreak in South-West Asia, has facilitated exemplary inclusion of Afghans on its territory. UNHCR welcomes Irans recent confirmation that COVID-19 related tests and treatment are free of charge for all individuals, including for refugees. Additionally, the countrys Universal Public Health Insurance has been automatically extended for refugees as well as Iranian nationals ensuring uninterrupted access to healthcare for all refugees.

In Pakistan, relevant departments have also been directed to include both refugees and internally displaced people in relief and response measures.

In all three countries, UNHCR is adapting our operations constantly to these unique circumstances.

UNHCR has temporarily suspended supporting voluntary returns of refugees from Iran and Pakistan in an attempt to limit the risk of refugees and staff contracting the virus.

In Afghanistan, UNHCR is supporting the Governments prevention efforts through awareness-raising in the most vulnerable communities and priority areas of return. Speakers mounted atop cars and trucks drive through towns and villages to spread accurate and reliable information that will save lives.

UNHCR is also helping the government better manage the flow of people into Afghanistan through hiring additional staff to boost the teams at the border and improving reception facilities allowing for more space. UNHCR has provided masks, disinfectants and other protective gear to government officials working at the border and in the communities so that they can protect themselves against the spread of COVID-19.

We are in the process of procuring more hygiene kits to be distributed among returnees and displaced communities as well as for the frontline staff of government institutions and our partners; scaling up the construction of water and sanitation facilities and further enhancing support for border surveillance and returnee monitoring in Afghanistan.

In Iran, UNHCR has airlifted essential medicines, medical equipment and personal protective equipment to support and strengthen national health services. To address the critical and urgent lack of hygiene materials in Iran, UNHCR has also distributed soap and disposable paper towels to some 7,500 refugee households living in refugee settlements across the country, whose living situations in close-quarters make then more vulnerable to COVID-19. More airlifts are expected in the coming weeks.

UNHCR has increased its capacity at Afghanistans borders to Iran to better be able to support tracking and contact tracing of individuals. Psychosocial support services continue to operate via phone.

In Pakistan, renewed emphasis has been placed on water and sanitation projects. UNHCR has provided 10 fully equipped ambulances and 28 large housing unit facilities to the provincial health departments and disaster management authorities in Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab. Medical equipment and sanitation products are also being distributed to rural health facilities in support of refugees and their host communities.

More support is desperately needed for Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan as part of collective efforts to combat COVID-19 worldwide. Despite the work being done across the subregion, the risk of the pandemic become unmanageable is now acute.

UNHCRs funding appeal of some US$315 million required for the Afghan situation is merely 17 per cent funded.

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Coronavirus Now is not the time to forget Afghanistan and its neighbours - UNHCR

Issued on: 17/04/2020 - 06:06Modified: 17/04/2020 - 06:04

Kabul (AFP)

As he watched the play about two girls wrestling with lingering trauma, Afghan student Hussain began to sob, the performance igniting memories of his own brush with death.

"I couldn't stop crying," said the 22-year-old, who survived a suicide bombing in Kabul that killed 57 people in 2018.

"I still have nightmares about the scene, blood, body parts and injured people crying for help."

Hussain, who only wanted to give his first name, spoke to AFP after seeing "Tanhayee" ("Loneliness"), a play that tells the story of two girls -- a suicide blast survivor and a victim of sexual assault.

In a conservative country that has seen decades of war, displacement and poverty, the producers hope the play -- which was touring just before the coronavirus pandemic hit but now is paused -- will raise awareness about psychological stress and the enduring impact of traumatic events.

"Every individual in this country has been somehow affected by mental trauma from the war or related violence," said Jebrael Amin, a spokesman for Peace of Mind Afghanistan, which is sponsoring the play.

"Theatre is a good way to raise awareness, as people witness the pain they perhaps didn't know many around them share", he said.

A 2018 European Union survey found that 85 percent of Afghans had experienced or witnessed at least one traumatic event, while data from the health ministry shows that roughly one in two Afghans suffer from psychological distress.

"No doubt the war and related violence are the biggest factors in mental distress and trauma in Afghanistan," said Bashir Ahmad Sarwari, head of the ministry's Department of Mental Health.

- Social stigma -

However, fewer than 10 percent of Afghans have received sufficient psychosocial support from the state, according to a recent Human Rights Watch report based on government data.

The situation is even worse outside major cities, with large parts of rural Afghanistan now under the control of Taliban extremists and lacking health infrastructure.

The Afghan government has trained around 850 mental health counsellors over the past decade, but the fear of social stigma in a conservative patriarchal culture means many people refrain from seeking help.

"This is a big problem as people suffering from mental health problems are labelled as weak, stupid or even crazy," Sarwari told AFP.

The impact can be devastating.

Najib, who declined to give his full name due to the stigma associated with mental illness, began suffering from depression and anxiety after losing his mother to a truck bombing in Kabul in 2017.

When he opened up about his struggles, people dismissed it as a sign of frailty. Some called him a madman.

"I... even thought of suicide", he told AFP.

Najib felt helpless and isolated for years, until a friend persuaded him to meet a psychologist.

With many Afghans still suffering in secret, mental health professionals are now turning to unconventional means to raise awareness, including public art projects and theatrical performances.

Peace of Mind Afghanistan has so far sponsored 15 performances of "Tanhayee", which showcases the life-changing impact of therapy when its two protagonists meet a psychologist.

- 'We cannot keep up' -

More than two million Afghans in the country of 35 million visited mental health clinics last year, up from a few thousand a decade ago, according to Afghanistan's health ministry.

"We are on the right path", Wahid Majroh, a senior advisor in the ministry, told AFP.

"But the pace of services or the awareness of mental health cannot keep up with the level of trauma from the conflict here."

The experience of trauma is so widespread that the suffering portrayed in "Tanhayee" moved many in the Kabul audience to tears.

The catharsis cut both ways.

Actress Jamila Mahmoodi, who portrayed the victim of a terror attack, said the performance helped her come to terms with narrowly escaping a suicide bombing.

The 21-year-old battled post-traumatic stress disorder for months, haunted by the aftermath of the attack.

"I feel like performing on stage helps me", she told AFP.

"I feel at peace while playing the role that I and thousands of others have painfully experienced in real life."

2020 AFP

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Traumatised by war: theatre's role in healing Afghanistan - FRANCE 24

The government of India has decided to send 500,000 hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) tablets to Afghanistan in a bid to help with the treatment of the COVID-19 patients, it has been reported.

India will use the Saarc Covid-19 emergency fund set up to send the tablets to Afghanistan.

A senior government official has told the Hindustan Times that New Delhi is currently working on options for the shipment of the tablets to Afghanistan in view of relations with Pakistan.

We are looking at various possibilities to reach the medicine to the people of Afghanistan at the earliest, the official said.

Global demand for the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine had boosted over the last few weeks after some studies showed that it helped to reduce the viral load in Covid-19 patients, according to Hindustan Times.

This comes as the COVID-19 positive cases are sharply rising in Afghanistan and the total cases rose to 784 as of Wednesday.

The disease has killed at least 25 people including some doctors, the officials in Ministry of Public Health said.

The Khaama Press News Agency is the leading and largest English news service for Afghanistan with over 3 million hits a month.Independent authors/columnists and experts are welcomed to contribute stories, opinions and editorials. Send stories to news@khaama.com.

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India sending 500000 HCQ tablets to Afghanistan to help treat the coronavirus patients - The Khaama Press News Agency