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Staff Sergeant Ronald Shurer II, who received the Medal of Honor, the nations highest military decoration, for braving heavy gunfire to save lives in the war in Afghanistan, died on May 14 at a hospital in Washington. He was 41.

His wife, Miranda Shurer, said the cause was lung cancer, which was diagnosed three years ago.

Sergeant Shurer was a senior medic in the Army Special Forces on April 6, 2008, when 15 American troops and about 100 Afghan commandos set out on a mission in the Shok Valley, a remote, mountainous part of Nuristan Province in eastern Afghanistan.

According to an Army account, he and his team were making their way through the valley when they came under withering machine-gun and sniper fire and were attacked by rocket-propelled grenades. The troops had found cover when Sergeant Shurer heard a call for help from another team up ahead that had taken casualties and was pinned down. He then ran up a steep mountainside through heavy fire to reach them, stopping on the way to treat a wounded soldier.

Fighting his way across several hundred yards, killing Afghan insurgents along the way, he reached the hemmed-in team and treated four critically wounded U.S. soldiers and 10 wounded Afghan commandos, the Army said.

It definitely felt that I was going to die, Sergeant Shurer said in an account on the Armys website in 2018. I just said a prayer and asked that my wife and son would be OK with what was going to happen. Then I just went back to work to continually re-triage everyone.

At one point another American sergeant was knocked to the ground when a snipers bullet struck his body armor. Sergeant Shurer rushed to his side. The sergeant was not hurt, but as he was being helped up another bullet struck his left arm and bounced off Sergeant Shurers helmet.

It felt like Id been hit in the head with a baseball bat, he said.

He helped evacuate the wounded soldiers, and as they were lowered down the mountainside with slings improvised out of nylon webbing, he used his body to shield them from fire. After they were loaded into a helicopter, he went back up the mountain to continue to fight.

Ronald J. Shurer II was born on Dec. 7, 1978, in Fairbanks, Alaska. His mother and father served in the Air Force and were moved about the country. He lived in Illinois and Idaho before they were posted to McChord Air Force Base, south of Tacoma, Wash.

He attended Governor John R. Rogers High School in Puyallup, Wash., where he was on the swim team and took part in triathlons. He earned a bachelors degree in business economics from Washington State University and was studying for a masters degree there before he enlisted a year after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. He met Miranda Lantzwere online as he was going through Special Forces training, and they married.

He was promoted to staff sergeant in 2006 and served in Afghanistan from November 2007 to May 2008. After his discharge, Sergeant Shurer worked for the Secret Service as a special agent in Phoenix before joining the services Counter Assault Team. He was assigned to the Special Operations Division in 2014.

Sergeant Shurer also received a Silver Star, a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star. President Trump upgraded his Silver Star to the Medal of Honor in a White House ceremony in 2018.

In addition to his wife, Sergeant Shurers survivors include two sons.

Im not a hero, he said in 2018. I just happened to be the medic there that day. The guys trusted me to help them, and I was going to do everything I could not to let them down.

The New York Times contributed reporting.

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Ronald Shurer II, Cited for Bravery in Afghanistan, Dies at 41 - The New York Times

Hawa Gul, 42, is a mother of seven children. She lives in Kohak village of Farah district in the western Farah province of Afghanistan, where FAO has recently assisted the most vulnerable households, specifically women-headed households, with a backyard poultry support intervention through the generous contribution of OFDA/USAID. The aim of this intervention was to provide home-based income opportunities for vulnerable women as well as sustain nutrition and food security of the vulnerable farmers who are on the brink of food insecurity as well as adversely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. FAO is supporting and working with the Government of Afghanistan to find alternative ways to address the needs of the most vulnerable smallholder farmers and landless households who are in dire need of assistance during this pandemic.

Hawa Gul takes care of her children alone as her husband is retired and is unable to support the family. I mainly relied on livestock-based livelihoods in order to feed my family. Keeping goats was the only source of income I had in recent years, and I used to manage all the requirements of my family through the sale of goat milk. However, the drought of 2018 negatively affected our livelihoods. My livestock become weak and the milk production reduced day by day due to the dried pasture and the high price of the animal feed in the market, which hindered me from providing proper feed for my livestock, explains Hawa Gul. She was also keeping a few chickens, but the number was not enough and, egg production was insufficient even for her family consumption. I ended up selling several heads of my livestock, and I went through a really difficult period that time, explains Hawa Gul further. Smallholder families like Hawa Gul are vulnerable to various shocks ranging from natural hazards to market fluctuations and animal diseases. The current COVID-19 pandemic has impacted her familys livelihood even before they could fully recover from the adverse impacts of the 2018 drought.

Thanks to OFDA/USAID, FAO recently supported her with a poultry input package that has enabled her to enhance her familys livelihood, food security and nutrition. Given the fact that there are lot of cultural barriers particularly for the women in Afghanistan to participate in other livelihood support activities, this intervention has provided access to nutritious food and home-based income opportunities for women through increased home consumption of eggs and the sale of surplus eggs in the market. I cannot explain how much happiness the poultry package I received from FAO has brought back to my family. Its a good home-based source of income, and I earn AFN 150 (around USD 2) from the sale of eggs everyday. I expect to increase this amount in the future, exclaims Hawa Gul.

This intervention is a part of FAOs Support to drought-affected and food insecure farming families. One of the activities under this project is to support around 1 500 vulnerable and food insecure households in three provinces (Kunar, Daykundi, and Farah) with poultry inputs. Each household received 20 pullets at 16 weeks of age with all necessary vaccinations along with 100 kg of compound poultry layer feed, two polyethylene drinkers and feeders, and essential construction materials for cooping. FAO also provided a leaflet with hotline numbers that provide technical support on backyard poultry to the farmers when needed. This intervention is instrumental in supporting vulnerable families to also minimize the adverse economic impacts of COVID-19 by having ready access to cash-flow/income when employment opportunities are reduced and household purchasing power is diminished. Despite the restrictions imposed by the response to COVID-19, FAO is committed to supporting the most vulnerable farmers with emergency and livelihood assistance while strictly following the precautionary measures laid out by WHO and the Ministry of Public Health in Afghanistan to safeguard the lives of beneficiaries and FAO staff.

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From vulnerability to resilience in Afghanistan: Hawa Gul's story of diversified livelihood and increased income due to FAO's poultry intervention...

The Ministry of Public Health on Friday said 542 new positive cases of COVID-19 were registered over the past 24 hours --bringing the total positive cases to 9,216.

The number of total known active cases in Afghanistan is 7,961, said the MoPH.

According to the Health Ministry, 12 people lost their lives over the past 24 hours and 58 more recovered. The known death toll from the coronavirus is now 205.

The total number of recoveries is 993.

Kabul is a hotspot for the virus, with 316 reported cases in the past twenty-four hours.

The new cases, according to the ministry, were reported in Kabul (316), Herat (47), Nangarhar (24), Takhar (23), Baghlan (23), Balkh (19), Kunar (18), Laghman (15), Farah (15), Ghazni (13), Paktia (5), Wardak (3), Logar (1), Kunduz (4), Panjshir (8), Kapisa (1), Daikundi (5) and Nuristan (2).

So far, 27,889 people have been tested in the country.

The number of deaths from COVID-19 globally is more than 333,032 and the global coronavirus cases are not 5,107,572, according to Johns Hopkins University.

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Over 9000 Confirmed COVID-19 Cases in Afghanistan - TOLOnews

KABUL, Afghanistan The morning was not yet over, but already it felt as if the very cycle of life in Afghanistan was under assault, with attacks at a maternity ward and a funeral serving as grim reminders that its people are in peril from cradle to grave.

First, three militants stormed a hospital in Kabul soon after 10 a.m. on Tuesday, shooting new mothers dead before the newborns in their arms had even seen the light outside the hospital. At least 15 people were killed inside the hospital mothers, babies, medical workers, and one police officer.

As security forces were scrambling in Kabul, about a hundred miles to the east, in the province of Nangarhar, a suicide bomber walked into the funeral for a local police commander. As hundreds of locals queued in front of the body for the final prayer, the bomber detonated his explosives not far from the corpse.

The commander, 59, who had survived many battles and attacks, had died of a heart attack. Now his body was riddled with shrapnel, too. The explosion killed at least 25 and wounded 68 others.

Violent death here is so frequent, and so scattered, that an accurate count is an impossible task. But by dusk on Tuesday, when the reported deaths of the day from all sides had been tallied, the Afghan war had most likely taken 100 lives.

Of course, the night brings more death and the next day more tallying.

What is crushing Afghans is not just the sheer brutality of the attacks with newborn babies soaked in blood and deprived of mothers before they have even gotten a name, but the failure of anything to bring a reprieve.

The United States and the Taliban signed a preliminary peace agreement in February that was supposed to have brought the two-decade war closer to an end. Instead, the insurgents have only cranked up attacks around the country, inflicting heavy casualties on Afghan forces with dozens killed every day.

The peace deal has been stuck in a prisoner exchange that was supposed to unlock direct negotiations between the Afghan government and the Taliban to plan for power-sharing after the United States withdraws its remaining troops. The Taliban are insisting on the release of up to 5,000 of their prisoners before considering any other moves.

An Afghan group affiliated with the Islamic State has claimed responsibility for attacking the funeral. But no group has claimed responsibility for attacking the hospital. The Taliban, in a statement, denied that they were behind it. But coming after weeks of intensifying Taliban attacks, the government blamed the group.

And in a sign that any momentum toward peace was dissipating, President Ashraf Ghani ordered Afghan forces to abandon the active defense posture they had been in since the signing of the U.S.-Taliban agreement and return to offensive attacks against the insurgents.

The Taliban, with the stoking of foreigners, have intensified the war and are shedding Afghan blood, Mr. Ghani said in an address to the nation at the end of the bloody day. Dont see our invitation for peace and a cease-fire as our weakness, but as deep respect to the demand and will of the people.

Deborah Lyons, the head of the U.N. mission in Afghanistan, condemned the hospital assault. Who attacks newborn babies and new mothers? Who does this? she said on Twitter. The most innocent of innocents, a baby! Why? Cruelty has no followers from humanity.

The insurgents have refused even calls for a humanitarian cease-fire to allow the country to combat the rapidly spreading coronavirus, a call Mr. Ghani repeated in his address. Afghanistan has officially recorded about 5,000 cases of Covid-19, but officials warn that the spread is most likely much wider.

Between the daily toll of the war and the virus, the countrys health resources are stretched thin. With 80 percent of the population living just barely above the poverty line, there is fear that the economic shock waves of the pandemic could bring starvation.

On Tuesday, the health system itself came into the cross-hairs.

Today, my doctor, my medical personnel, the poor mother who is in labor, are left in chaos the doctor that is there to rescue her is covered in blood and falls next to her bed, said Wahid Majrooh, the deputy minister of health.

The attack in Kabul, the capital, targeted a 100-bed hospital in the western part of the city, a largely Shiite area often hit by Islamic State bombers.

The hospital is known for its large maternity ward, which is supported by Doctors Without Borders. During the five-hour operation to kill the three assailants, Afghan special forces were seen rescuing newborn babies. NATO troops were also seen at the site.

Crowds gathered outside the hospital and emotions ran high as they saw babies soaked in blood. A security official coming out of the hospital showed reporters pictures of the devastation inside the ward: mothers shot as they had tried to hide under a bed, a female nurse prostrate in blood, one woman still clinging to her newborn.

She was dead, but the baby was alive, the official said.

The relatives of one woman who had given birth at dawn were trying to get news. The womans brother wailed and twisted in pain as other relatives tried to calm him. Oh, God, oh God, was all he could say as he kept crying.

She had given birth already when the suicide bombers entered, said Rafiullah, the womans brother in law.

A community elder came out of the hospital with a list of a dozen newborns who had been evacuated to other hospitals. As he read the names of their mothers these had been written on pieces of tape on the babies stomachs, he said and the names of the hospitals the babies had been sent to, a man from the anxious crowd asked about the mothers.

Fifteen martyred mothers, said the community elder, Abdul Hadi. Their bodies are in the ambulances being evacuated now. We put them in body bags.

The bombing in Nangarhar Province targeted the funeral of Sheikh Akram, a local police commander. About 500 people had gathered at a large field in Khewa district for the final prayer, and a grave had been dug for him just across the road.

Naeem Jan Naeem, an eyewitness, said the imam had just asked people to line up and announced the beginning of the prayer when a huge blast was heard and a fire erupted in the front of the crowd.

The body of Sheikh Akram was close to the explosion, Mr. Naeem said. There was shooting after the explosion, too his face and his chest had shrapnel wounds.

His body was wounded after he had died.

Najim Rahim contributed reporting from Kabul, and Zabihullah Ghazi from Jalalabad.

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From Maternity Ward to Cemetery, a Morning of Murder in Afghanistan - The New York Times

May 13, 2020

By Tabasum Akseer

Afghanistan has endured decades of political instability and chaos. The country remains exceedingly fragile despite nearly 20 years of international support, and the disputed presidential election in February, in which long-time rivals Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah both declared themselves the winner, has left the Afghan government on the verge of imploding. As punishment for the countrys failure to resolve this dispute, the U.S. government has cut a billion dollars of aid and vowed to cut a billion more in 2021.

Added to botched elections and donor fatigue are stalled U.S.-led peace talks, which may now be derailed by Covid-19. The war-torn and impoverished nation has already been significantly affected by the spread of the virus, which has forced border closures, disrupting commercial and humanitarian deliveries and further stressing an already fragile healthcare system. As the pandemic bears down, travel restrictions and flight suspensions will make seeking care outside the country difficult or impossible.

Abandoned tanks from the Soviet era in Bamyan, Afghanistan. The country has endured decades of political instability and chaos. (Photo: Sayed Rashid Sadat / The Asia Foundation)

Amid these considerable challenges, Afghans living with disabilities are uniquely vulnerable. Afghanistan ratified the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2012 and adopted the Law on Rights and Privileges of Persons with Disabilities the following year, but to date there have been few concrete steps to provide services to individuals living with disabilities. Assistance for Afghans with disabilities has never been a high priority for the government or the donor community, and political instability, insecurity, poor economic conditions, and weak governance have undermined efforts by the government to address their needs.

A 2020 report by Human Rights Watch notes that four decades of war have left Afghanistan with one of the worlds largest populations per capita of people with disabilities, including many with amputations, vision or hearing problems, and post-traumatic stress disorder. But the true size and circumstances of Afghanistans disabled population are uncertain, and policymaking is hindered by the lack of reliable empirical data.

In 2019, The Asia Foundation moved to fill this empirical void with the Model Disability Survey of Afghanistan. Implemented with technical support from the World Health Organization, the MDSA is the first such survey in Afghanistan in 15 years, and the first ever to collect representative data both on the prevalence and distribution of disabilities across the country and on the broader context of underlying health conditions, supportive environments, and other determinants of health and well-being of Afghanistans disabled population.

An enumerator collects data for the Model Disability Survey of Afghanistan, the first comprehensive survey of disabilities in Afghanistan in 15 years. (Photo: Jim Huylebroek / The Asia Foundation)

The MDSA is a complex survey using multistage sampling, administered to adults (18+ years) and children (217 years), with separate survey tools for each group. A total of 14,290 households were surveyed from April 14 to May 6, 2019, representing 111,641 Afghans across the country. Three core tools were developed, covering: (1) household characteristics, (2) adult disabilities (including health conditions, ability to function, healthcare support, availability of personal help and assistive products, well-being, and empowerment), and (3) childhood disabilities (including health conditions and ability to function). Importantly, the results are representative at both the national and regional levels.

The MDSA paints a disturbing picture of Afghanistans disabled population. Almost 80% of adults aged 18 and over have some form of physical, functional, sensory, or other impairment (24.6% mild, 40.4% moderate, and 13.9% severe). Severe disability is more prevalent among females (14.9%) than males (12.6%). Among children aged 217 years, 17.3% have a mild, moderate, or severe disability. The incidence of severe disabilities among adults and children, which stood at 2.7% in 2005, has risen steeply to 13.9%, putting Afghanistan in unprecedented healthcare territory.

The prevalence of severe disabilities increases with age, from 8.7% of those 1825 years old to 12.0% of those 2635, 15.2% of those 3645, 18.3% of those 4655, and 26.2% of those 56 and older. The prevalence of severe disabilities varies across ethnic groups, with Turkmen and other ethnic groups experiencing the highest incidence, at 16.5% and 16.1%, respectively. Among the other major ethnic groups, severe disability is more common among Pashtuns (14.4%) than Tajiks (13.7%), Hazaras (13.0%), or Uzbeks (11.8%). Severe disability is also more common among females, divorced or widowed adults, and the uneducated or unemployed.

The incidence of severe disability is particularly high in the South East region (20.5%), the West (25.4%), and the Central Highlands (25.4%), indicating the need for focused interventions in these areas to support health, education, and social integrationprograms.

Moderately or severely disabled adults report that their greatest challenges are physical mobility, community participation, employment, and education, suggesting these as potential policy and program areas.

Physical disabilities and mental health problems among adults are less likely to be congenital and more likely to be caused by the ongoing conflict and warfare in the country, pointing to the huge toll that thewar has taken on Afghans and underscoring the importance of peace and reconciliationefforts.

Remarkably, the MDSA found that roughly half of Afghans surveyed did not make use of assistive deviceseyeglasses, walkers, or other equipment or appliancesbecause they were not aware that such devices existed. This is a sobering finding in the 21st century, and there is obviously a dire need for essential equipment and devices, as well as education and awareness campaigns to better inform Afghans.

Children with disabilities struggle with transportation, lack opportunities for interpersonal engagement, and face difficulties learning at school. They are also far more likely to suffer from conditions such as muscular dystrophy, depression/anxiety, and migraines. Appropriate community- and school-based interventions will be critical to prevent these disabilities from lingering into adulthood.

The MDSA provides up-to-date, objective, and comprehensive data that should be used to make policy and measure progress toward improving the health and well-being of disabled populations in Afghanistan. The Afghan government, as well as the donor community, United Nations partners, nongovernmental organizations, and civil society, can use this data to develop cross-sectoral action plans to meet the needs of those living with disabilities.

The Model Disability Survey of Afghanistan can be found here. As we work to address the many challenges in Afghanistan, let us not lose sight of the most vulnerable, including those living with disabilities.

Tabasum Akseer is director of policy and research for The Asia Foundation in Afghanistan. She can be reached at tabasum.akseer@asiafoundation.org. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author, not those of The Asia Foundation.

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Disability Survey Is Afghanistan's First in 15 Years - The Asia Foundation - In Asia