Almost four months after it was forced to shut down, the hospital managed by the Italian humanitarian organization, ‘Emergency’, has reopened in Lashkar-gah, in southern Afghanistan. A surgeon, two nurses and an administrator along with 140 local medical and logistical staff reclaimed the facility. “We have presented our requests to the governor of Lashkar-gah – said the founder of Emergency, Gino Strada – including free access to all wounded to the facility and we also demanded that the hospital be respected by everyone. And so it must be because of its very nature: a neutral place where violence is not tolerated. The hospital – the sole structure in all of Helmand able to offer free surgical and quality surgical assistance – was shut down last April 10 after an army intervention and the arrest of some Afghan and international staff members, who were then released, seeing as the accusations against them were a preposterous at best.[AB]