Asia

the “long nights” of hospitals in Afghanistan

The British journalist of Afghan-Pakistani origin recounts in a documentary the work of the Italian NGO Emergency, which since 1999 has accompanied the many dramatic pages of life in the country with its assistance to the wounded and sick. “After the bombs, today the problem of domestic and family violence arises more and more.” Filippo Bongiovanni, anesthetist-resuscitator: “Disproportion between care needs and available resources.”

Rome () – The Afghan “long nights” of Emergency – the Italian NGO that offers free medical assistance to victims of armed conflicts – began in 1999 from Anabah, in the province of Panjshir, and then reached Kabul and Lashkar. Gah, between surgical and maternity centers, a first aid network and prisons. Twenty-five years without interruption, punctuated by explosions, massive accidents – the massive influx of patients who arrive in a short time on the occasion of great tragedies -, a mixture of life and death, and so much humanity. The documentary Long night, by Lynzy Billing, a British journalist of Afghan-Pakistani origin, narrates it poetically and was screened at an evening at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni from Rome.

Billing, winner of three Emmy Awards for her investigative work on CIA strategies and special forces funding in Afghanistan, returned to the country last July to document Emergency’s work. Long Night is a tribute to the doctors who have treated more than eight million war wounded in the last quarter of a century. And they continue to do so today, approaching the victims of other violence, such as domestic and family violence, which has always been present in the patriarchal Afghan society, but is often hidden by the roar of the bombs. “Now the situation is different, other problems are beginning to arise,” said Lynzy Billing in the speech that preceded the screening of Roman. Daily life problems aggravated by the Taliban regime, which “have always been there in the relational sphere and in families, and are very difficult to understand in the context of a hospital,” he added.

“Long Night” alternates narrations of dramatic moments in Afghanistan’s recent history – such as the explosion of a tanker that killed 90 people and injured 400 in the embassy neighborhood of Kabul in 2017 – with testimonies from patients and doctors, including Afghan staff, whose work is inevitably mixed with the pain of personal grief. “When you’re documenting in a hospital, you don’t know what’s going on, you don’t know what doctors you’re going to meet that day, what kind of patients,” said Billing, who spent a dozen days at the Emergency facilities. Kabul, Panjshir and Helmand province. «I was worried about not disturbing their work. I stood there, seeing which doctors wanted to say something. “They were encounters born of chance.”

In “Long Night” there is no shortage of intimate, emotional, sometimes heartbreaking confessions from those who experienced the effects of the explosion of “two or three bombs a day,” and who allowed themselves a “moment of pause” before the journalist’s camera. , to think about what has happened over the years. «There is a worker who has lost family members in one of the many attacks. It makes us realize how important it is to relate to the other patients, injured people, who come to the hospital,” Billing said.

Emergency anesthetist-resuscitator Filippo Bongiovanni, who returned from Kabul just two months ago, was also present at the meeting prior to the event in Rome. He explained the internal dynamics of the NGO’s health centers, where there is often “a disproportion between treatment needs and available resources”, represented by the unfortunately frequent mass deaths of the past. At the capital’s surgical center where he worked, ‘when the first casualties arrive, a massive triage station is set up right at the entrance,’ explained Bongiovanni, who joined Billing in his field work last summer. When dramatic events of large proportions occur, ‘you work for hours, and the following days remain high-intensity days, because you have to gradually catch up with the treatment of all non-urgent patients.’ Rhythms that over the years have imposed high-quality training on medical personnel, both international and local.

“In my experience,” added Boniovanni, “I have perceived the training of local staff as the heart of my mission.” Speaking, then, of Afghan surgeons, he added: «They are the first professional category that is trained in Emergency hospitals. Their long theoretical and practical training, as well as their exposure to war victims, make them some of the most experienced people in the world in the treatment of these patients. An interview in Long Night with a surgeon working at the Lashkar-Gah center shows the extent to which his knowledge encompasses that of “4 or 5 different European specialist surgeons”. Training is a priority for Emergencies, which avoids an intervention based on mere subsistence; the goal is always “clinical patient care.”

Lynzy Billing – who has just returned from Syria, where she collected thousands of photographs and documents that recount the system of oppression of the Bashar al Assad regime – also spoke of the “therapeutic” role of journalism to do justice to the victims “who demand a story.” of what happened.” Following the United States’ withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, the war “was too hastily dismissed by the new authorities, as all new regimes that come to power after a conflict do,” he said. That is why it is important to investigate thoroughly and, above all, “come back” after reporting. «I continue to work on the CIA’s work in Afghanistan and what happened militarily with the American and Australian presence. “I think it is still very important to understand the role of the intelligence services,” he added, in a country that for years has been gripped by bloody conflicts that have not yet been fully deciphered, in which the civilian population has always paid. the most painful consequences.



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