Hi, Andra—
Earlier today, two suicide bombers struck near the Kabul airport, where thousands of Afghans and other civilians have been gathering in hopes of escaping Taliban rule.1 Numbers are still coming in, but it appears that at least 60 Afghan civilians and 12 U.S. troops have been killed, and more than 140 people are wounded.2
Since the Taliban took control of the country, Doctors Without Borders has seen an influx of patients to their hospitals, and today's attacks underscore just how critical their work continues to be in Afghanistan.
MoveOn members have come together to donate more than $500,000 to support Doctors Without Borders' urgent work in Afghanistan and Haiti since last week, but the needs are tremendous.
Please keep reading to learn more about the situation on the ground and the lifesaving work Doctors Without Borders does every day.
Dear MoveOn member,
After 20 years of failed U.S. policy and occupation, Afghanistan fell to the Taliban last Sunday, placing the lives of millions of Afghan citizens—particularly women and girls—at risk for brutal repression and totalitarian rule.3 Simultaneously, half a world away, a massive earthquake in Haiti left at least 1,900 people dead and tens of thousands injured, just one month after the country was thrown into disarray by the assassination of their president.4
The scale of each of these crises is profound, and the images we're seeing—such as Afghan citizens clinging to military planes in an attempt to flee and Haitians using makeshift cots to carry wounded family members to already overcrowded hospitals—are heartbreaking.
Moments like these can be paralyzing, but there is something each of us can do to help.
Doctors Without Borders has been on the ground in Haiti and Afghanistan for decades, providing desperately needed medical care and assistance, and their work will be crucial in the coming days and weeks.
United States policy not only failed in Afghanistan during the 20 years we spent at war in the country but also in this acute moment of crisis. The U.S. government knew that the Taliban would overtake the country as our forces left, but instead of creating plans to evacuate citizens at risk and protect the Afghans who worked for the United States, thousands of people are stuck in a bureaucratic backlog which puts them at direct risk of retaliation by Taliban forces.5
The global community, and particularly the United States, must come together to help the people of Afghanistan for the long term by providing assistance to refugees, ensuring that women and girls are able to receive an education, and putting a stop to human rights abuses as they arise. But in these critical early days, citizens in Afghanistan must have access to reliable medical care and resources, and Doctors Without Borders is committed to providing that urgently needed help.
Since the 2010 earthquake in Haiti that took the lives of a quarter of a million people, the nation has struggled to rebuild and has been plagued by corruption and gang violence, culminating in the shocking assassination of their president by an international militia just last month.6 And as the world's oldest Black republic, the country has long been a target of racist interventionism and exploitation by imperial powers.
Sunday's earthquake has thrown the country into even more chaos and an acute lack of access to medical care or emergency supplies.
Doctors Without Borders has been on the ground in Haiti since the 2010 quake and will serve to fill gaps in care, providing emergency medical assistance to those directly impacted by the disaster.
Together, MoveOn members like you raised more than $3 million for relief efforts in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria devastated the island. And after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans and left tens of thousands of people displaced, MoveOn members opened the doors to their very own homes to provide shelter for families. MoveOn members have often responded with powerful collective action in facing crises from Yemen to the U.S. Virgin Islands to Syria to our own border with Mexico.
Today, as we once more confront urgent crises across the globe, we need your support.
Thanks for all you do.
–Mana, David, Kelly, Oscar, and the rest of the team
Sources:
1. "Bombings strike Kabul airport, killing at least 12 U.S. troops and dozens of Afghan civilians." The New York Times, August 26, 2021
https://act.moveon.org/go/155277?t=7&akid=304954%2E53570607%2E1JTfYo
2. Ibid.
3. "Intelligence Agencies Did Not Predict Imminence of Afghan Collapse, Officials Say," The New York Times, August 18, 2021
https://act.moveon.org/go/155189?t=9&akid=304954%2E53570607%2E1JTfYo
4. "Haiti Quake Toll Leaps to Nearly 2,000 Dead as Rain Pelts Survivors," The New York Times, August 17, 2021
https://act.moveon.org/go/155190?t=11&akid=304954%2E53570607%2E1JTfYo
5. "The Taliban intensify a search for people who worked with U.S. and British forces, a U.N. document says." The New York Times, August 19, 2021
https://act.moveon.org/go/155191?t=13&akid=304954%2E53570607%2E1JTfYo
6. "Haiti Quake Toll Leaps to Nearly 2,000 Dead as Rain Pelts Survivors," The New York Times, August 17, 2021
https://act.moveon.org/go/155190?t=15&akid=304954%2E53570607%2E1JTfYo
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