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Residents of Badakhshan’s Raghistan District Self-Finance to Build Health Center

Residents of Raghistan district of northeastern Badakhshan province are building a health center using their personal funds and resources.

Construction work began on Sunday and the center will be built in the next three months in a remote village where local communities will have easy access to basic health care.

Hikmatullah Mohammadi, Taliban’s head of Information and Culture in Badakhsha, said that the construction of the center is expected to cost 5 million Afghanis (over US$63,000), which, he said, will be funded by the residents.

The facility will be built on 1 jereb (some 2,000 square meters) land and will have nine rooms, a corridor, and a hall.

Badakhshan is one of the most remote and least developed provinces in Afghanistan. Many communities in the mountainous and inaccessible villages of this province lack access to health services.

Due to the lack of roads and rugged terrain, which hinder access to health facilities, residents in the rural villages have to travel hours, and even days, to reach clinics.

Access is particularly difficult in winter when floods and avalanches prevent people from traveling to clinics even by donkey or horse.