Hadi Ghafari
The prevailing cold wave has claimed lives of 11 children and women in the Shibar district of the central Bamyan province last week.
Five of those killed by the inclement weather were women, who could not get timely medical assistance due to blockage of roads, while the rest were children, said Mohammad Nadir, head of the local council in Dahan-i-Kangor area of the Shibar district.
He said elders from different villages of the district had gathered in the centre of the province to demand help from the government.
Juma Khan, head of the local council in Sardi village, said one woman breathed her last while on way to hospital. He said it was a maternity case and the relatives could not manage to shift the patient to hospital due to closure of roads.
He said Shibar district had 11 local councils with 7,000 population. The people had come to the province centre to inform the government about their problems and get emergency assistance.
Local officials said the temperature had dropped to minus 25 degree centigrade due to the heavy snowfall in Shibar district.
Doctor Ihsanullah Shaheer, head of the public health department in Bamyan, confirmed the death toll and said they had established health clinics in some areas and would soon organise mobile health clinics to address problems faced by people of the remote districts and villages.