A12 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.FRIDAY, JULY 31 , 2020
The World
BRITAIN
Chinese envoy strikes
back on Uighur issue
China’s ambassador to Britain
lashed out at what he saw as
one-sided reporting on human
rights issues Thursday,
presenting videos defending
Chinese actions against Uighur
Muslims in the northwestern
region of X injiang and warning
Britain to stop interfering in his
country’s affairs.
Ambassador Liu Xiaoming’s
presentation stressed that
China’s actions in Xinjiang were
meant to fight terrorism, and the
grainy images he played for
reporters included bloody scenes
from the aftermath of attacks.
The videos were meant to
counter a recent BBC interview
in which presenter Andrew Marr
had challenged the diplomat to
explain drone footage that
apparently showed Uighur
prisoners being guarded and
transferred to trains by Chinese
authorities.
Liu denied that Uighurs were
being mistreated and posted
images that challenged, among
other things, whether the
prisoners were kneeling or
sitting on the ground. He
described “so-called victims” of
human rights violations as either
separatists or “actors trained by
anti-China forces in the U.S. and
other Western countries.”
The U.S. government imposed
sanctions on 11 companies it says
are implicated in human rights
abuses. The sanctions increased
U.S. pressure on Beijing over
Xinjiang, where the CommunistParty is accused of mass
detentions, forced labor, forced
birth control and other abuses
against Muslim minorities.
— Associated PressEUROPEAN UNIONSanctions imposed
over c yberattacksThe European Union on
Thursday slapped sanctions
o n six people and three
organizations, including Russia’s
military intelligence agency,
accusing them of responsibility
for several cyberattacks that
threatened E.U. interests.
The bloc said in a statement
that those targeted include
people considered to be involved
in the 2017 “WannaCry”
ransomware attack, the“NotPetya” strike that notably
caused havoc in Ukraine, and
the “Operation Cloud Hopper”
hacking campaign.
The sanctions are the first
that the E.U. has i mposed for
cyberattacks.
E.U. foreign policy chief Josep
Borrell said that “the measures
concerned are a travel ban and
asset freeze to natural persons
and an asset freeze to entities or
bodies. It is also prohibited to
directly or indirectly make funds
available to listed individuals
and entities or bodies.”
Four members of Russia’s
GRU military intelligence agency
were singled out. Two Chinese
nationals were also targeted over
Operation Cloud Hopper.
— Associated Press560 people killed in protestssince October, Iraq says: The
Iraqi government said nearly
560 protesters and security
personnel were killed in months
of anti-government unrest that
erupted in late 2019. Prime
Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi’s
new government has pledged to
investigate the deaths and
incarceration of hundreds of
protesters in unrest that led his
predecessor to resign. The death
toll is roughly in line with what
news outlets and rights groups
have reported. The government
will treat all those who died as
“martyrs,” and each family will
be offered 10 million dinars
($8,380) in compensation, said
Hisham Daoud, an adviser to
Kadhimi. Beginning Oct. 1,
protesters took to the streets to
demand jobs, basic services and
an end to corruption.Spain convicts American of
drug smuggling: A Spanish
court found a 77-year-old
American man guilty of drug
smuggling and sentenced him to
seven years in prison, rejecting
his defense that he was duped.
Victor Stemberger had told the
Madrid provincial court he
didn’t know cocaine was hidden
in the jackets he carried across
the world on behalf of a man he
thought represented the United
Nations. The family of the
Vietnam War veteran from
Virginia says he has had
cognitive issues since he suffered
a severe brain injury 15 years
ago. He had no previous
criminal record. Defense lawyer
Juan Ospina presented the court
with a psychological report that
said his client has dementia.
— From news servicesDIGESTPHOTOS BY JIM HUYLEBROEK/BLOOMBERG NEWSCrowds pack Sarai-e Shamali market in Kabul on July 12. Afghanistan has logged more than 36,000 confirmed coronavirus cases and nearly 1,300 deaths, but it has carried out only 87,000 tests nationwide.
BY PAMELA CONSTABLE
AND SHARIF HASSANkabul — Th e panic over the coro-
navirus has led people to try an
assortment of concoctions in
hopes of a magic cure: In India,
some have drunk cow urine. In
Indonesia, some have smoked a
mixture of herbs, spices and can-
nabis.
In Afghanistan, though, people
say it was a mundane application
of healthy home remedies —
crushing lemons and kiwis into
juice, making hot soup from vege-
tables, mixing tea with ginger —
that helped them or their sick
relatives survive and recover.
It’s hard to know the true extent
of the outbreak in Afghanistan,
which has documented more than
36,000 confirmed cases and near-
ly 1,300 deaths but has carried out
only 87,000 tests nationwide. An
overwhelmed health system, pub-
lic fear of crowded hospitals and
reliance on traditional treatments
are probably obscuring the true
toll.
Thousands of people who fell ill
and later recovered never knew
whether they had contracted the
virus. Many described experienc-
ing headaches and fevers, some-
times with other signs associated
with the coronavirus, such as los-
ing their sense of smell. But with-
out being tested, they could not be
sure.
“Our whole family got sick with
headaches and fever, even the
kids, but we all got through it,” said
Mir Ahmad, a lawyer in his 40s
whose family did not get tested for
the virus. “We stayed together in
the house for more than a month.
We made juice with lemons and
oranges. I drank five pots of tea a
day. We stayed away from sweets
and oily food, as the doctors rec-
ommended. Now we are all fine.”
Zamin Modabber, an employee
at a technology company, felt sick
after going to a large dinner in
June. Other guests also fell ill, and
the one who ventured to a clinic
for testing got a positive result.
Modabber, 30, said he refused to
seek hospital treatment even
though he was in “excruciating
pain,” because he feared it would
make him sicker.
“The environment of the coro-
na hospital is worse than the virus
itself,” he said, because it “weakensmorale” and risks contamination.
Worried that he might infect his
ailing in-laws, he said, he camped
at his office for weeks, preparing
vegetable dinners and drinking “a
lot of honey, lemon and ginger
tea.” He said he has fully recov-
ered.
The World Health Organization
said Sunday that limited health
resources and testing, plus the
lack of a national death register,
have made confirmed cases and
deaths in Afghanistan “likely to be
underreported.” It suggested that
“the peak has not yet passed and
cases may still accelerate.”Afghan health officials have
said the numbers of coronavirus
cases and deaths may turn out to
be considerably higher in rural
areas, where both testing and hos-
pital facilities are lacking and pub-
lic access to information is limit-
ed. Some villagers, they said, are
still unaware that the coronavirus
exists.
In urban areas, however, health
officials said that people had re-
sponded well to an early and con-
sistent campaign on radio and TV
advising them to stay home if they
felt sick, eat only nutritious food
and seek medical treatment if theyhad difficulty breathing or devel-
oped other serious symptoms.
Religious leaders endorsed the
messages, announcing that peo-
ple should not crowd into
mosques and should pray at home
if sick. To reduce the stigma of the
disease, the national council of
Islamic clerics declared that any-
one who died of it would be con-
sidered “shaheed,” or a martyr to
Islam.
“People have followed the ad-
vice of medical authorities. No one
has challenged it,” Health Minis-
ter Ahmad Jawad Osmani said
Monday. In Kabul and other urban
centers, he said, the situation is
close to achieving minimum stan-
dards for herd immunity, but
some rural pockets are “still at
risk.” But herd immunity requires
people who have recovered from
the coronavirus to be immune
from future infection, and wheth-
er coronavirus survivors develop a
lasting immunity is unknown, ac-
cording to medical experts.
Even urban dwellers, though,
have been tempted by promises of
a miracle cure. In June, thousands
flocked to an herbal-medicine dis-
penser in Kabul named Hakim
Alokozai, who offered a curative
potion. After officials found it con-
tained a dangerous mix of narcot-
ics, they shut down his clinic amid
angry street protests.
By this week, though, the capi-
tal had returned to normal. A com-
mercial shutdown and traffic ban
had been lifted, the virus seemed
to be in recession and spirits were
high with the four-day Muslim
festival of Eid al-Adha due to start
Friday. In an informal survey of
people across Kabul, more than a
dozen said they or their loved ones
had survived a flu-like illness theyassumed to be the coronavirus.
Asked how they had recovered,
most said they had followed ad-
vice from doctors on TV or, in
some cases, in their own families.
Mohammad Elyas Rahmani, 23,
an engineering student, said al-
most everyone in his family came
down with the virus. One uncle, a
physician living in Germany,
called daily with advice, recom-
mending fresh juice and beef
broth.
“He told us what to do, step by
step,” said Rahmani, who is now
recovered. He said he suffered
from a severe headache but never
got tested or went to a hospital.
His uncle said that going to a
crowded, poorly equipped facility
“could weaken the body’s immune
system” and should only be a last
resort.
There was only one downside to
the high-vitamin, low-fat regimen
prescribed by the experts: It cost a
lot more than the typical Afghan
meal of rice, meat and bread. Or-
anges are imported from Pakistan,
lemons from Iran and kiwis from
Tajikistan. Before the virus ar-
rived, lemons cost less than
50 cents a pound; by June the price
had shot up tenfold.
“I never sold so many oranges
before. People couldn’t afford it,
but they had no choice,” said Es-
matullah, 30, a produce seller in
Kabul who uses one name. He said
he wore a mask and gloves at his
stall each day, then took leftover
fruit home at night.
“Thanks to God, nobody in my
family got too sick,” he said. His
only regret was also welcome
proof that the virus has subsided:
The price of lemons is back to
50 cents a pound.
[email protected]Afghans turn to home remedies to fight the coronavirus
A wholesale pharmacy market in Kabul. Many Afghans say home remedies such as lemon or
kiwi juice, soup made from vegetables, or t ea with ginger helped them survive and recover.
“Our whole family got sick with headaches and fever... but we all got through it,” said one.