KABUL, Afghanistan — Suhaila Siddiq, Afghanistan’s first feminine lieutenant normal, who was additionally a famend surgeon and unknowingly turned a feminist function mannequin in a largely patriarchal society, died right here on Friday, on the similar hospital the place she had handled the wounded and weary of her nation’s endless warfare for many years. She was regarded as 81 or 82, although her precise beginning date is unknown.
Normal Siddiq, who had Alzheimer’s illness for a number of years, died from problems of the coronavirus on the Sardar Mohammad Daud Khan army hospital in Kabul, one among her medical doctors, Amanullah Aman, mentioned. It was her second battle with the virus; she had contracted it earlier this yr.
Normal Siddiq rose by the ranks of the Afghan Military in the course of the Chilly Warfare and went on to run the Daud Khan hospital by the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the Afghan civil warfare and the Taliban’s rule. She was additionally one among Afghanistan’s few feminine ministers, overseeing the general public well being ministry till 2004 beneath the transitional authorities led by Hamid Karzai, following the U.S. invasion. In that function, she helped implement polio vaccinations throughout the nation after the illness had develop into endemic following years of instability and violence. She went again to her job as a surgeon after she left her authorities place.
Normal Siddiq “devoted herself to serving her nation,” Mr. Karzai said Friday on Twitter. President Ashraf Ghani of Afghanistan paid his respects throughout a memorial ceremony on the hospital on Saturday.
As a surgeon, Normal Siddiq was identified for her deft hand, and regardless of her unassuming stature she was described by those that knew her as self-possessed and unintimidated by individuals round her, particularly males.
Within the mid-Nineteen Eighties, on the peak of the Soviet-Afghan warfare, the Communist-backed authorities in Kabul promoted her to surgeon normal of the Afghan Military after she had distinguished herself by tirelessly saving the lives of the tons of of wounded troopers and civilians who poured in by the doorways of the 400-bed Daud Khan hospital. She was often known as “Normal Suhaila.”
“She was significantly better than any males I’ve ever labored with,” mentioned Atiqullah Amarkhel, a retired Afghan normal, who had been promoted to his place inside months of Normal Siddiq. “She wouldn’t go dwelling for days.”
Normal Siddiq was born in Kabul, most likely in 1938. She attended highschool after which Kabul College as her nation was quietly altering beneath the load of the Chilly Warfare. She studied in Moscow for a number of years on scholarship after which returned to Afghanistan together with her doctorate. Within the years earlier than the Soviet invasion in 1979, when she was a lieutenant colonel, she labored as a surgeon on the Daud Khan hospital.
One in every of six sisters, Normal Siddiq was the daughter of a person who was as soon as the governor of Kandahar, and who was supportive of her training. She traced her ancestry to the Barakzai dynasty, which dominated Afghanistan for greater than 100 years in the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Normal Siddiq by no means married. Details about survivors was not instantly out there.
After the collapse of the Communist authorities in 1992, Normal Siddiq retained her place within the hospital beneath the interim authorities established on the outset of the Afghan civil warfare.
Kabul was quickly cut up as competing factions vied for management. Ahmad Shah Massoud, then the protection minister, personally requested Normal Siddiq to run the hospital, as civilian casualties mounted within the capital following incessant rocket assaults by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the appointed prime minister, towards his adversaries, mentioned Sher Ahmad, a detailed household buddy.
“She believed in her job, not in any regime,” Mr. Ahmad mentioned.
However in 1996 the Taliban took Kabul, and so they rapidly enforced draconian rule beneath a harsh interpretation of Islamic regulation. Ladies weren’t allowed to carry most jobs and have been required to cowl their faces in public.
Kathy Gannon, a reporter for The Related Press, was in Kabul as the town fell and the brand new Taliban authorities started to ship ladies dwelling from their jobs, together with Normal Siddiq, prompting Ms. Gannon to write down an article about her.
Normal Siddiq and her sister Shafiqa, a professor at Kabul Polytechnic College, “have been good and humorous and so they weren’t going to be intimidated,” Ms. Gannon mentioned. “But additionally, the Taliban realized rapidly that they wanted her.”
Inside months, the Taliban, already making an attempt to retain individuals with sought-after technical talents and better training, requested Normal Siddiq to return to her job on the hospital, the place she tended to most of the regime’s wounded fighters. She carried out many operations beneath the flickering gentle of a lantern, Mr. Ahmad recalled.
“They wanted me and so they requested me to return again,” Normal Siddiq mentioned in a 2002 interview with the British newspaper The Guardian. “It’s a matter of satisfaction for me. I stayed in my nation, and I served my individuals. I by no means fled overseas.”
Normal Siddiq and her sister have been among the many few ladies who walked round Kabul with out face coverings or a burqa — a daring assertion towards the Taliban, who left her unscathed due to her place on the hospital.
On the similar time, Normal Siddiq taught drugs to feminine college college students whose educational careers had swiftly ended beneath Taliban rule. On no less than one event, the federal government tried to crack down on her educating, however Normal Siddiq pushed again, mentioned Makai Siawash, a detailed buddy who lived with Normal Siddiq for a short time.
“She was able to get whipped by them, however she didn’t let the Taliban fighters in,” Ms. Siawash mentioned.
One in every of her college students was Sayeda Amarkhel, the daughter of retired Normal Amarkhel, who studied beneath Normal Siddiq on the hospital after her time at college was minimize quick beneath the Taliban.
“She fought the Taliban for us,” Dr. Amarkhel mentioned. “At this time I’m a gynecologist, and I owe it to her.”
