Gina Portella is physician responsible for Emergency in Kabul. The first time she was in Afghanistan as a doctor was in 2005 and in these 15 years, in her travels there and back there is one thing that has never seen change: violence. When we connect on zoom for the interview, he is inside the Emergency hospital, an independent Italian organization active in Afghanistan since 1999, in Kabul. Red T-shirt, white walls behind, voices of colleagues passing along the corridors, from one room to another.
It landed in Afghanistan a few days before the Taliban arrived in Kabul. “The moments of suspension that preceded the takeover of the government by the Taliban have caused an increase in violence and crime. We therefore had a significant increase in the number of injuries but to date the situation is back to normal. However bad it is to speak of normality when referring, as in our case, to a war hospital ». And this is what Dr. Portella repeats: “It is not normal for a war hospital in a country to continue to exist for 20 years without being able to be used for other purposes. It can’t work like that. ”
No he can not. And today the images of people clinging to the trolleys of an airplane that is about to take off tell all that did not work in Afghanistan. Along with the screams of women at the airport who desperately ask American soldiers for help, crying in tears that the Taliban will pick them up at home.
«The atmosphere I live today is the one that is transmitted to me by my Afghan colleagues. They all come regularly to work. They are naturally worried, also because the fights were there, even if not sensational. For now, I am waiting to see how the Taliban will really behave ».
In the first live world press conference, the Taliban leaders announced the new government, guaranteeing security for citizens and respect for women’s rights, but under the sharia law. Three days after taking office, the first are counted victims of the protests starting to shake the streets. “Some people in the hospital visited us in recent days and were worried about how they should be dressed in case there were any videos. Our Afghan doctors smiled, saying “We are here in our hospital and we are dressed as always”. They like to cover their necks with something but for a religious question, as they have explained to me several times. They too hope that the Taliban’s claims are real ”. To date, not everyone wears the burqa on the way to work. Will they be able to continue to do so?
Only the next few days will be able to answer this question. «We are all a little struck by the fact that after 20 years of unstable situation, attacks, with troops that have occupied this country, we are still at the same point. My personal feeling is one of tiredness in seeing how these situations where violence is used as a solution cannot be stopped.. War never is. When I arrived here, Afghanistan was a country at war for a lifetime and today it still is ».
And the violence has not changed ways and forms. “I would define brutality as a pathology that is of a tiring malice. The other day there was a desperate father here, he arrived injured, forced to have a double arm and leg amputation. He was crying in despair and telling me that he had seven children and he was the only support for the job. He didn’t know what to do anymore. He was a grown man and he cried like a baby. ‘
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