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In March, the World Health Organization said that more than 200 health care facilities had shut down or suspended operations in Afghanistan, all as a result of the Trump administration's freeze on aid funding. It said without urgent intervention, about 200 more facilities would shut down by June. On the ground, Afghan midwives tell NPR that they are already seeing the impact. NPR's Diaa Hadid reports, and please note that her story includes details about the deaths of women and babies.
DIAA HADID, BYLINE: The midwives spoke to NPR on condition of anonymity. They were critical of the Taliban and worry for their personal safety. They were also critical of the Trump administration and worry they'll lose their jobs, which are funded by foreign aid groups, if they're identified. That's why we've only used their first names...
FAEZEH: (Speaking Dari).
HADID: ...Like Faezeh, a midwife who used to work in a health clinic in an isolated mountainous district. It was shut down, even as locals begged staff not to go.
FAEZEH: (Speaking Dari).
HADID: This week, Faezeh says, she got word that a woman and her baby died in childbirth in that district. Her area was snowed in. She couldn't get to a regional hospital. Other women reach hospitals when it's too late.
KARIMA: (Speaking Dari).
HADID: Midwife Karima tells NPR that one woman lost so much blood that she died on the way to the hospital where she works.
KARIMA: (Speaking Dari).
HADID: Another woman, Fatima, tells NPR she encountered a woman who arrived with a baby stuck in her birth canal at the hospital where she works. She encountered another woman whose baby's legs had emerged, but the head was stuck inside.
FATIMA: (Speaking Dari).
HADID: She says both those babies died.
FATIMA: (Speaking Dari).
HADID: Fatima says she's from a deeply poor district. Most women, she says, give birth at home and die at home unrecorded because families can't afford a taxi to get a woman to hospital.
FATIMA: (Speaking Dari).
HADID: Other families in her conservative area refuse to let women leave their homes even to have a baby.
FATIMA: (Speaking Dari).
HADID: She says health care in Afghanistan has always been tenuous, especially for women. She says it became worse after the Taliban seized power over three years ago. The group has banned women and girls from studying after the sixth grade. There's no new nurses, midwives or health care workers. So losing U.S. aid was a cruel blow.
FATIMA: (Speaking Dari).
HADID: She says no one prioritizes women's lives. And the Trump administration's cuts to USAID triggered a domino effect of sorts. Soon after, the British prime minister announced his country would nearly halve its budget for foreign aid, the lowest level in nearly 30 years. He said that was to divert resources to defense spending as Washington shrinks back from its traditional NATO allies. Then a series of European countries announced cuts to their foreign aid, citing budgetary constraints, a desire to pivot to their national self-interest and a need to spend more on defense.
Heather Barr is from Human Rights Watch. She's followed Afghanistan closely for decades.
HEATHER BARR: It seems to be that other donors are following the U.S. down and that what Trump has done, really, is give everyone a license to give up on funding aid.
HADID: She says it's like the Trump administration has given the wealthy West permission to not care about Afghan women. Diaa Hadid, NPR News, Mumbai.
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