Real courage about Afstan

One hopes the Taliban are good for their word:

Five Years After Slayings
Doctors Without Borders Returns to Afghanistan

In 2004, five Medecins Sans Frontieres workers were murdered in Afghanistan, leading the organization to withdraw after more than 24 years of providing basic health care in the country. Doctors with the group have now returned to provide treatment at hospitals in Kabul and the contested Helmand region.

Five years ago a team of workers from Medicins Sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders) were killed in a brutal roadside ambush in Afghanistan. The deaths caused the Nobel Peace Prize-winning medical relief organization to withdraw from the country in bitter circumstances, blaming, in part, international armed forces for militarizing humanitarian aid.

This week, MSF attempted to put the tragedy behind it as it dispatched its first team of doctors to the troubled country since 2004.

The organization has taken over the operation of two large hospitals -- one in a growing suburb of Kabul, and another in Lashkar Gah, the capital of the strife-torn Helmand province. The hospitals will be manned by a team of 13 international staff and over 200 local workers. The estimated $4.5 million in costs for the mission in coming year will be raised privately and not come from government funds...

To ensure the safety of MSF's new mission, Hofman has spent the past nine months securing agreements from all sides of the conflict -- the Kabul government, the United States-led NATO forces and the Taliban -- to keep their hospitals demilitarized.

MSF doctors treated their first patients on Oct. 6 in the Kabul hospital, which is located in the sprawling district of Ahmed Shah Baba. The capital city has experienced a population boom as people escape fighting in other regions and as former refugees return home from Pakistan. Services have not been kept up, and the 150-bed hospital is expected quickly reach capacity.

A Strict 'No Weapons' Policy

But it is the Helmand hospital which poses the biggest challenge for MSF. When it begins operations there on Oct. 18, it will be the first functioning health service in the region for several years. And with conflict in Helmand as intense as ever, Hofman said he expected the hospital to be inundated.

All health services are provided free of charge, and the agency has taken a hard line against bribery. A large sign has been hung in the Kabul hospital reading: "No one is allowed to give presents or pay money to the staff of the polyclinic. If someone sees this happen, please call the director." A strict "no weapons" policy is also in force inside the hospital.

Returning to Afghanistan was a tumultuous decision for MSF...

MSF story here, photo of Kabul clinic (Canadian site here):

...