KURRAM: Blockade of the main Parachinar-Peshawar Road has created problems for residents of Kurram district as local markets are running short of daily-use commodities and hospitals of lifesving drugs.

Local residents said patients were facing severe problems due to shortage of lifesaving drugs, adding that non-availability of oxygen at children ward in the District Headquarters Hospital, Parachinar, had endangered lives.

Parachinar has been cut off from rest of the country due to blockade of the Thal-Pararachinar Highway for last 68 days, they said, adding with temperatures plunging to below freezing point, lives of many children were at risk.

They said children were also facing nutritional issues due to non-availability of milk in the bazaars.

Dr Zulfiqar Ali, a child physician at the DHQ Hospital in Parachinar, demanded immediate provision of Liquefied Petroleum Gas for heating as well as the cylinders of oxygen for emergency purposes along with medicines for children. He said that the wards were occupied by patients and the hospital’s administration was compelled to refuse more patients.

“Many child patients from the outskirts of Parachinar in upper Kurram have no access to hospital. We are also not able to record the number of children suffering from various seasonal and viral diseases,” Dr Ali said.

Dr Iqrar Hussain, another child specialist at DHQ Hospital, said that parents were forced to take their children back to home due to non-availability of gas for heating in wards.

Meanwhile, Kurram deputy commissioner Javedullah Mehsud told Dawn that a jirga, which had been meeting the warring tribes for the last over a week, was still trying to convince the rival groups to facilitate reopening of the main road.

However, he said there was a deadlock on certain conditions.

Published in Dawn, December 16th, 2024