PARACHINAR, Dec 26: Continuing sectarian clashes in Parachinar and other areas of the Kurram Agency have created a serious shortage of live-saving drugs and food items in the area and the entire region may soon face a humanitarian crisis.

Seventy injured people were brought to the agency headquarters hospital in Parachinar on Wednesday.

Curfew in force for long durations and the blockade of Thall-Parachinar road have severely affected supply of food and other items of daily use and created a famine-like situation.

Local resident Ashiq Ahmad said that because of the closure of the main road for several weeks, people were depending on whatever little they were getting from Afghanistan.

“We have almost exhausted the stock of life-saving drugs and patients are dying because of shortage of surgical equipment and essential medicines,” said a doctor in the government-run hospital in Parachinar where the injured were brought.

He said that at least 100 injured people had been brought to the hospital over the past three days, many of them in critical condition. The hospital, he said, had only three days’ stock of life-saving drugs.

Sources said that clashes continued in different parts of the agency and 28 more people, two of them soldiers, had been killed in gun-battles since Tuesday night, raising the total death toll to 45.

Heavy exchanges of fire were continuing between two sectarian groups in different parts of the agency.

The sources said that seven people were killed in a mortar attack on the Balishkhel area and two paramilitary soldiers in Sadda town.

In Alizai area, 13 people were killed and their bodies were sent to the North Waziristan Agency and Hangu district while six others were killed in Ahmadi Shama area of the agency. About 100 houses were torched in Balishkhel area.

Clashes intensified between residents of Sadda and Balishkhel areas in the Lower Kurram Agency after paramilitary forces vacated their hilltop positions.