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INTERNATIONAL EDITION | MONDAY, AUGUST 2, 2021 Dictatorship I.C.U. wards is no solution are filling up for Tunisia and doctors

Rached Ghannouchi are horrified Hopes are fading in Miami OPINION as Covid-infected patients On the morning of July 26, my col- are flooding in once more leagues and I — all of us democrat- ically elected members of Parliament BY PATRICIA MAZZEI — found the Parliament building in downtown Tunis surrounded by army Alix Zacharski, a nurse manager, went tanks and our access blocked on the to check on one of her patients inside the orders of President Kais Saied. Covid-19 intensive care unit at the Jack- In a televised speech the night be- son Memorial Hospital in Miami on a re- fore, Mr. Saied announced a host of cent afternoon, hoping that the patient, measures, the most startling of which who had been struggling to breathe on was suspending the work of the elected her own, would be a little better. But legislature. He stripped members of these days inside the Covid I.C.U., al- Parliament of their parliamentary most everything is worse. immunity, sacked the prime minister The week before, Ms. Zacharski’s and consolidated judicial and executive team had lost a 24-year-old mother power in his hands. By doing so, Mr. whose entire family had contracted the Saied is seeking to overturn the results coronavirus. The woman, like every of an entire decade’s hard work by other patient in the Covid I.C.U., had Tunisians who have fought for demo- been unvaccinated. cratic reforms. I believe his actions are Ms. Zacharski reached the sliding unconstitutional and threaten Tunisia’s doors of her patient’s room and peered democracy. inside. A return I held a sit-in in “We intubated her?” she asked a doc- to one-man front of the Parlia- tor. “When? This morning?” ment building but “Yesterday afternoon,” he said. rule will not ultimately decided to “Jesus,” Ms. Zacharski said, her voice solve my leave and urged a near-whisper. country’s others to do so be- Covid-19 patients have never stopped economic cause I was worried PHOTOGRAPHS BY JIM HUYLEBROEK FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES arriving at Medical I.C.U.-B., the unit problems. about any potential With the security situation in Afghanistan rapidly deteriorating, hundreds of people wait in long lines at the passport department in Kabul each morning, hoping to find a way out. that Ms. Zacharski has tended since confrontation that March 2020. But the onslaught of admis- could result in blood- sions had slowed. For a glorious period, shed. Nearly a week the unit had shrunk to three patients. has gone by and we are still at an The end of the pandemic seemed within impasse. As leader of the largest party reach. in Parliament, I’m writing this in the Now patients fill the I.C.U.’s eight beds hopes of finding a way out of this cri- Multitudes flee Afghanistan again. A second unit, with 50 additional sis. beds, opened last week. Tunisians’ dissatisfaction with the KABUL, AFGHANISTAN homes in cities, the last islands of gov- The resurgence of the coronavirus political leadership’s performance is ernment control in many provinces. has burdened hospitals anew across the legitimate. In recent weeks, the coun- Thousands more are trying to secure United States, with a rush of patients fu- try has seen a dangerous rise in passports and visas to leave the country eled by the virulent Delta variant of the Covid-19 cases and deaths as the Refugee crisis looms altogether. Others have crammed into virus catching doctors off guard. Florida health system struggled to respond smugglers’ pickup trucks in a desperate has reported the highest daily average effectively to the crisis. We were also as violence and fear of bid to slip illegally over the border. hospitalizations in the United States, 36 faced with a difficult economic situa- Taliban fuel an exodus In recent weeks, the number of Af- for every 100,000 people over the past tion and a protracted political crisis. ghans crossing the border illegally shot two weeks, according to data compiled More than a decade ago, Mohamed BY CHRISTINA GOLDBAUM up around 30 to 40 percent compared by The New York Times. In the northern Bouazizi, a Tunisian fruit and vegeta- AND FATIMA FAIZI with the period before international Florida city of Jacksonville, hospitals ble vendor, set himself on fire and troops began withdrawing in May, ac- have more Covid patients than ever be- became the catalyst for the Arab Haji Sakhi decided to flee Afghanistan cording to the International Organiza- fore, despite the availability of vaccines. Spring protests. Here in Tunisia, his the night he saw two Taliban members tion for Migration. At least 30,000 peo- Health workers like Ms. Zacharski actions helped bring about the end of drag a young woman from her home and ple are now fleeing every week. feel disbelief that they must endure an- over five decades of dictatorship, lash her on the sidewalk. Terrified for The sudden flight is an early sign of a other surge. She remains tired from the which were marked by endemic cor- his three daughters, he crammed his looming refugee crisis, aid agencies previous one. And she cannot get her ruption, repression of dissent and family into a car the next morning and warn, and has raised alarms in neigh- head around having to treat patients the economic underdevelopment. Today’s barreled down winding dirt roads into boring countries and Europe that the vi- same age as her adult children who are unrest is not a quest for freedom, but Pakistan. olence that has escalated since the start gasping for breath because of a prevent- dissatisfaction over economic That was more than 20 years ago. of the withdrawal is already spilling able infection. progress. They returned to Kabul, the capital, across the country’s borders. Last year, Ms. Zacharski feared the We vowed to never forget what Mr. nearly a decade later after the U.S.-led Haji Sakhi said he and his family are prepared to flee Afghanistan if necessary: “I’m “Afghanistan is on the brink of an- unknown. How bad would SARS-CoV-2 Bouazizi and thousands of Tunisians of invasion toppled the Taliban regime. not scared of starting everything from scratch. What I’m scared of is the Taliban.” other humanitarian crisis,” Babar be? Could doctors treat it? What would all political persuasions struggled for. But now, with the Taliban sweeping Baloch, a spokesman for the U.N. High the darkest days of the pandemic look We sought to draft a new constitution across parts of the country as American Commissioner for Refugees, said last like? Now she is armed with hard- enshrining the rule of law and separa- forces withdraw, Mr. Sakhi, 68, fears a and one son. “What I’m scared of is the bloody civil war between ethnically month. “A failure to reach a peace agree- earned knowledge from the past 14 tion of powers; to build new institu- return of the violence he witnessed that Taliban.” aligned militias have taken hold. ment in Afghanistan and stem the cur- months — and vaccinated. But the virus tions to protect individual and col- night. This time, he says, his family is Across Afghanistan, a mass exodus is So far this year around 330,000 Af- rent violence will lead to further dis- continues to move into uncharted terri- GHANNOUCHI, PAGE 10 not waiting so long to leave. unfolding as the Taliban press on in their ghans have been displaced, more than placement.” tory. “I’m not scared of leaving belongings brutal military campaign, which has half of them fleeing their homes since The sudden exodus harks back to ear- “We are scared of seeing what we saw, The New York Times publishes opinion behind, I’m not scared of starting every- captured more than half the country’s the United States began its withdrawal lier periods of heightened unrest: Mil- and this time affecting the younger pop- from a wide range of perspectives in thing from scratch,” said Mr. Sakhi, who 400-odd districts, according to some as- in May, according to the United Nations. lions poured out of Afghanistan in the ulation,” she said. “This is the hardest hopes of promoting constructive debate recently applied for Turkish visas for sessments. And with that, fears of a Many have flooded into makeshift years after the Soviets invaded in 1979. thing I’ve ever done in my entire career.” about consequential questions. himself, his wife, their three daughters harsh return to extremist rule or a tent camps or crowded into relatives’ AFGHANISTAN, PAGE 4 COVID, PAGE 5

For a very French greeting, less puckering up Still Processing ple to avoid physical contact to prevent Will the cheek kiss survive the virus from spreading. the pandemic? Some think But now, with more than half of the French population at least partly vacci- The real talk. it’s time to say au revoir. nated and most lockdown restrictions lifted, many are split over whether to go BY GAËLLE FOURNIER back to the way greetings used to be and questioning whether the bise was all Twice a year, Louise Al-Hakkak would that great to begin with. sit on her front porch in Burgundy, wait- “The pandemic made us realize that ing for her sister Flora and dreading the we had the choice to do the bise or not,” moment of “la bise.” said Karine Boutin, a psychoanalyst In this Franco-Iraqi family, only Flora based in the western French city of enjoyed France’s traditional two-kiss Poitiers. greeting on the cheeks. For Ms. Al- “The question to ask is whether the Hakkak and her father, “It was more a bise of tomorrow will be the same bise as chore than anything else.” yesterday, with the same intensity and New York Times culture Listen wherever But times have changed. the same spontaneity,” she added. “We writers Jenna Wortham you get your podcasts. “Covid made us stop doing the bise,” don’t know if this traumatic memory is nytimes.com/ said Ms. Al-Hakkak, 23. “It’s a lot easier here to stay.” and Wesley Morris grapple stillprocessing now. I don’t need to ask myself tons of The agreed-upon number of kisses with art, identity, politics, questions about whether I should do it varies across French regions: Some- the internet — anything. or not.” times, the standard is two, but in the In France, the bise is a longstanding southern city of Montpellier it is three, tradition for greeting loved ones, or and it is just one in the northwestern re-

CARL COURT/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES even strangers, that was upended by the gion of Brittany. In 2010, Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain and his wife greeted President Nicolas coronavirus. Throughout the pandemic, There are even “maps of bises” to help Sarkozy of France and his wife with “la bise.” Since Covid, many avoid the cheek kisses. the French authorities have urged peo- FRANCE, PAGE 2

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