NEW DELHI: Amid deepening political and humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, many citizens of the war-torn nation who are in Delhi for medical treatment are now feeling worried about their return plans and the fate of their homeland.
India is one of the preferred destinations for Afghan nationals who seek treatment for critical illness, including transplant of liver and other organs.
As the crisis continues to unfold in Afghanistan after takeover by the Taliban, it has sent shockwaves from Kabul to Delhi.
Currently, four patients are admitted at Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals in south Delhi, undergoing treatment for cardiac and orthopedic ailments, hospital sources said on Tuesday.
"All four are male patients and all of them had arrived on June 20 for their treatment. Many Afghans prefer to come to Delhi for their treatment, some for long-term depending on the nature and severity of the ailment," a source said.
Of course, they all have watched with horror what's happening in Afghanistan in the last several days.
And, are certainly "anxious about their future, and the fate of their country", the source said.
Also, there are two Afghan nationals seeking OPD treatment as of now, hospital sources said.
Asked about their visa status, they said, "The four admitted patients had come in June on a six-month visa".
The visa status of the other two Afghan citizens, was not immediately known.
There is an element of uncertainty about their return plans, but the number of such patients is relatively less than usual, as their inflow from Afghanistan had "dipped after the second wave of COVID-19, anyway", the source said.
At Fortis hospital in Delhi, a six-month pregnant Afghan woman suffering from pancreatic cancer had recently undergone a complex but successful "Whipple surgery" giving her a new lease of life.
This was one of the few Whipple surgeries conducted on pregnant women across the world, and probably "the first in India", doctors at the hospital had said.
A source in the Fortis hospital group, when contacted, on Tuesday said, "The patient is still in Delhi, and had planned to return only after the delivery."
"The situation in Afghanistan is very critical and it is weighing heavy on the minds of these patients. A lot of uncertainty stares them in the face. They had come to India with a hope to regain health and return home happily. The situation has changed drastically from what it was when they had arrived recently," a hospital source said.
According to reports emerging from Afghanistan, the situation in capital Kabul and other cities like Kandahar remains critical with a large number of citizens, activists and public personalities posting messages on social media seeking help for the war-torn nation, which they feared would descend into an abyss of uncertainty.
After a blitz across Afghanistan that saw many cities fall to the insurgent forces, the Taliban have sought to portray themselves as more moderate than when they had imposed a brutal rule in the late 1990s.
But many Afghans remain sceptical of this and fear return of the "regressive" regime.
Meanwhile, as per reports, the Taliban declared an "amnesty" across Afghanistan and urged women to join their government on Tuesday, seeking to convince a wary population that they have changed, a day after deadly chaos gripped the main airport in Kabul as desperate crowds tried to flee their rule.