Emergency — Victor J. Blue | 415.867.9615 vic@victorblue.com

Nurse Georgia Novello comforts Madina, 8, injured in the US airstrike on the MSF hospital in Kunduz and evacuated to Kabul.

Yasef Naem, 6, is held by his father after an exam by Dr. Alberto Landini.

An Afghan policeman waits with his companions weapons, prohibited inside the hospital.

Mohammed Audia, 22, hurt in a suicide attack in Ghazni the day before.

A family brings in Abdul Rashid, 10, who received shrapnel to the head in a blast

Head nurse Tijana Maričīć cradles the head of Nadia, 6, from Lalandar, a village outside of Kabul, who lost her eye and much of the side of her face playing with an unexploded munition

Surgeon Daniel Scerrati, center, examines Jamat Gul, 28, who suffered shrapnel injuries in an IED blast

Salamy, 12, from Maidan Wardak, is treated by nurse Ahmad Shah for a shrapnel wound in his stomach

Emergency doctors look over the X-rays of Nasirullah, 1, who suffered a shrapnel injury to her head in Ghazni.

Nazimuddin screams from a gunshot wound to the chest.

A CAT scan of Maryam, 22, from Ghazni.

Maryam recovers from a bullet that shattered her jaw while she is 7 months pregnant.

Storm over Emergency.

Nurse Georgia Novello comforts Hakim Jan, 10, victim of multiple shell injuries.

Doctors prepare to amputate the legs of Gula Jan, 35, who was the victim of an IED blast.

Operating theater.

Dr. Shukur Sardar prepares to open the thigh of Jan Mohammed, 10, to extract a vein for a vascular graft, after he suffered multiple blast injuries from an unexploded munition.

Chest x-ray.

Emergency Medical Coordinator Michela Paschetto rests in the lounge.

Nasirullah, 1, who suffered a shrapnel injury to her head, sleeps in the sub-ICU.

Noor Pacha sits in the garden with his injured son Noorullah, 7, and fellow patient Ab Ahad.

After a laparotomy.

Sangeer, 7, from Kapisa province, sits in a wheelchair in the garden.

Abdullah, 8 months old, cries as his uncle comforts him the day after a mine explosion that broke both of his legs killed his mother and father.

Ajmal 11, pushes Sangeer, 7, along a path in the hospital.

Physical therapy session.

Maneza, 5, from Gardez, recovers from a mine explosion that cost her hand and right eye.

Closing the wounds.

Emergency Kabul

Afghans are being killed and injured in greater numbers than at any time since the beginning of the US war there 14 years ago. Inside the emergency room at the Emergency Surgical Center for War Victimsin Kabul, the lucky ones are saved by a dedicated but consistently exhausted staff of Afghan and foreign doctors and nurses. This project documents the increasing violence suffered by Afghan civilians, a direct result of the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan in 2014. Every day through the front gate passes a steady flow of minivan ambulances and Toyota Corolla taxis bearing wounded civilians from the provinces into the hospital. They come from a huge area of central Afghanistan, a constellation of places that all have one thing in common- fierce, deadly fighting. As the fighting escalates between the Taliban and the Afghan security forces, more and more of them are caught in the fighting. The increasing price paid by noncombatants in Afghanistan is a harbinger for an unstable future for the country, and a legacy of the US war there.