Gino Strada, Italian surgeon for victims of war, dies at 73

ROME (AP) — Gino Strada, an Italian surgeon who co-founded the humanitarian group Emergency to provide medical care for civilian victims of war and poverty in many countries, and was a fierce critic of the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan, has died. He was 73.

His daughter, Cecilia Strada, tweeted: “Friends, my dad #GinoStrada is no more.’’ Emergency announced Friday that “Our beloved Gino died this morning. He was founder, surgeon, executive director, the soul of Emergency.”

Neither cited a cause of death, but the website of Corriere della Sera newspaper said Strada had been suffering from heart problems for years, and died in France.

Prominent among Emergency’s medical missions in 19 countries was Afghanistan.

Exactly on the day of his death, Italian newspaper La Stampa had published an article by Strada in light of the Taliban’s rapid military takeover of key cities in the country in the last few days.

Strada wrote that the blitz “shouldn’t surprise anyone who has a discrete knowledge of Afghanistan or at least a good memory.”

“It seems to be that both are lacking – or, better — both were always lacking,” Strada wrote in the La Stampa opinion piece. “The war against Afghanistan has been – no more, no less – a war of aggression, launched after the Sept. 11 attack, by the United States, to which all the Western countries tagged along.”

Strada wrote that in his seven years in Afghanistan, “I saw the number of wounded and the violence increase, while the country became progressively devoured by insecurity and corruption."

Referring to his anti-war stance, Strada wrote: “We were saying 20 years ago that this war would be a disaster for everybody. Today the outcome of that aggression is before our eyes: a failure from...