KABUL, 24 February 2005 — More than 370 people, many of them young children, have died from avalanches and health problems from the country’s worst winter in a decade, officials said yesterday. Afghan Public Health Minister Sayeed Amin Fatimie said at least 211 children under five had died in the last month and a half because of the freezing conditions.
The deaths were due to “cold-related diseases such as respiratory tract infections or whooping cough, he told AFP. The western province of Ghor was worst hit by the freezing conditions with 90 confirmed deaths, and northeastern Badakhshan and central Daikundi provinces were also badly affected, Fatimie added.
Aid agency Catholic Relief Services said last week that between several hundred and 1,000 children are feared dead in poverty-stricken Ghor as a result of the cold spell. Afghan officials said late last week that at least 162 other people have died in avalanches, road accidents and collapsing mud-brick houses due to heavy snowfalls in rural areas, according to Afghan officials.
Meanwhile, two Afghan aid workers have been found shot dead in a region of southern Afghanistan where militants and bandits are active, in a fresh blow to aid and reconstruction efforts. The two men, who worked for Afghan-run aid agency IbnSina, were found dead on a road in Maiwand district of Kandahar province on Monday or Tuesday, IbnSina director general Dr Abdul Majeed Siddiqi told Reuters.
It was unclear if the men had been killed by Taleban militants or bandits but the car they had been driving had been stolen, Siddiqi said. Siddiqi identified the men as a driver named Zahir and a pharmacist named Mohammad Nadir. “A motorcyclist found their bodies lying in the road,” he said. “They had been shot with Kalashnikovs.”
Siddiqi said IbnSina, which runs health care projects, had halted road travel by its staff, but its clinics in outlying areas would continue operating. “We have the support of the local communities,” he said. “This is the first time something like this has happened.” Fatimie described the deaths as “brutal killings” and said the men had left on their provincial mission last week and their bodies were found on Tuesday.
Three policemen have been killed during gunbattles with suspected drug traffickers amid an ongoing crackdown on Afghanistan’s booming narcotics industry, officials said yesterday. Two officers were shot dead on Monday when they tried to close in on a suspected drugs gang in northeastern Takhar province, Interior Ministry spokesman Lutfullah Mashal told AFP.
