Fil-Am doctor among 3 killed in attack on Afghanistan hospital

A Filipino-American doctor was among three people killed in an attack on a hospital in Kabul, Afghanistan on Thursday, the Philippine embassy in Washington D.C. said.

In a post on its Twitter account, the embassy identified the fatality as Dr. Jerry Umanos, a Filipino-American pediatrician from Chicago.

 

"Our condolences to the family of Dr. Jerry Umanos, the Filipino-American pediatrician from Chicago who was killed in Kabul on Thursday," the embassy said before dawn Friday, PHL time.

 

The embassy also provided a link to a Washington Post article reporting three Americans were killed in the attack on a Kabul hospital.

 

According to the Washington Post report, a security guard opened fire Thursday at Cure Hospital, part of an international network of hospitals run by a Pennsylvania-based charity.

 

It said the incident, which also wounded several people, was the latest in a series of attacks on foreign civilians in Afghanistan.

 

The report said the hospital largely focuses on providing medical care to needy children.

 

It also described Umanos as "a Cure International pediatrician of Filipino descent who had worked in Kabul for years and had previously practiced medicine in inner-city Chicago."

 

The two other fatalities were a father and son who went to the hospital to meet Umanos, the report quoted Afghan Health Minister Soraya Dalil as saying.

 

Dalil said an American nurse was also wounded in the attack.

 

Quoting the health ministry, the Washington Post report said Umanos was at the hospital gate greeting the two American visitors when the officer walked up to them and opened fire.

 

It added two others were wounded, according to Cure International.

 

The gunman then shot himself but survived and was restrained then taken inside the hospital.

 

The Washington Post reported that several hospital doctors and administrators at the hospital were shocked by the killing of Umanos, who had been working in Afghanistan for the past 10 years.

 

“This loss is a great loss for his family, for those of us he worked with, as well as for the people of Afghanistan,” said Bruce Rowell, a pediatrician at Lawndale.

 

Rowell described Umanos as "a loving, caring physician who served all of his patients with the utmost respect.”

 

Umanos had been the community health coordinator for Empowerment Health, a nonprofit dedicated to improving the health of Afghan women and children.

 

He helped form the group’s community health programs and had led research efforts.

 

Umanos worked to develop training programs to give Afghan women better health education and skills, said Evan Russell, co-founder of Empowerment Health.

 

“Our efforts in the community will continue on, and we remain deeply committed to the mission to which he devoted his life, but Jerry’s daily impact on this program, and on so many other people, will be missed forever,” Russell told The Washington Post in an email.

Chicago colleagues in mourning

Colleagues of Dr. Umanos held a news conference outside Chicago's Lawndale Christian Health Center, where Dr. Umanos worked.

 

"Today we have lost a very, very dear friend and devoted colleague. Dr. Jerry Umanos has been a pediatrcian at Longdale Christian Health Center for over 25 years and he was, as for many of us on staff, the pediatrician for our very own children. Early this morning, we learned the news of his death in Afghanisatn. For nearly a decade, Dr. Jerry Umanos has volunteered in Afghanistan to train medical residents and to see pediatric patients. This loss is a great loss for his family, for those of us he worked with, as well as for the people of Afghanistan. He was a loving caring physician who served all of his patients with the utmost respect," said Dr. Bruce Rowell, Lawndale Christian Health Center's chief clinical officer.

 

According to the Afghanistan Ministry, the attacker was a policeman employed as a security guard at the Cure Hospital, and he was captured. The Taliban have claimed responsibility for similar attacks this year, but made no comment about Thursday's shooting.

 

A father and son visiting the hospital were also killed, Health Minister Suriya Dalil said.

 

"As they were walking out of the hospital, the security guard opened fire on them, killing three and wounding another one," an Interior Ministry official said.

 

In Chicago, Umanos' colleagues were grieving.

 

"Our hearts are broken. So we ask that you pray for his family, pray for our clinic, pray for our patients and staff, our community, and even the community Jerry served in Afghanistan," said James Brooks, Chief Ministry Officer, Lawndale Christian Health Center.

 

The attack came nearly three weeks after Associated Press photographer Anja Niedringhaus, 48, was killed and reporter Kathy Gannon, 60, wounded while they were sitting in the back of a car in the east of the country.

 

The assault on the journalists came shortly after an Afghan journalist with the Agence France-Presse news agency was killed alongside eight other people when Taliban gunmen opened fire inside a luxury hotel in the centre of Kabul.

 

Also in March, a gunman shot dead Swedish journalist Nils Horner, 51, outside a restaurant in Kabul.

 

Eight Afghans and 13 foreigners were killed in January when a Taliban suicide bomber and gunmen attacked a restaurant in Kabul's diplomatic district.  — with a report from Reuters/Joel Locsin/ELR, GMA News