Residents of a village in Kuran wa Munjan district of Badakhshan province told TOLOnews that due to the lack of medical centers, 20 women have died during childbirth in this village over the past year.

According to the residents, there are no doctors or midwives in the village.

Din Mohammad, a resident of Kuran wa Munjan, spoke about the maternal deaths in the village: “There is no medicine or doctors here. We can't go anywhere when someone gets sick. People are poor and lack the means to transfer their patients. Since last year, twenty people have died during childbirth.”

“We lost around twenty women during childbirth. Our village is farther away from here, but today we came to this village for a funeral,” said Abdul Wakil, another resident of Kuran wa Munjan.

Meanwhile, Abdul Raouf, a relative of a woman who recently died in the district, told TOLOnews about the lack of healthcare facilities in their village: “There is neither a doctor nor a road here. We tried for three days to transfer her elsewhere, but there was no way, and eventually, she passed away.”

Meanwhile, a health center official in Kuran wa Munjan reported 32 maternal deaths during childbirth across several villages in the district.

Baz Mohammad, head of the Kuran wa Munjan health center in Badakhshan, said: “In the past year, we recorded three maternal deaths in the clinic, but in remote villages, another 29 deaths occurred due to distance and lack of facilities.”

However, local authorities in Badakhshan pledge that efforts are underway to address the healthcare challenges in remote districts of the province.

Aminullah Tayeb, deputy governor of Badakhshan, told TOLOnews: “We are keeping the center informed to ensure special attention is given to Kuran wa Munjan district, and the respected Ministry of Public Health will assign a team here to resolve the health issues of this district’s people.”

Badakhshan, in the northeast of the country, is one of the provinces where many districts are difficult to access, and the lack of medical centers remains a fundamental challenge for residents.