Afghan Maternal Mortality Rate High

From Washington Times:

FAIZABAD, Afghanistan | When Azada went into labor high in the Hindu Kush mountains, it started an odyssey that lasted 72 hours and covered 60 miles of forbidding terrain.

The journey for the 20-year-old mother of two, who like many Afghans uses only one name, included a trek atop a mule and a bone-crushing drive in a battered rental car over winding paths, through deep gorges and around craggy peaks.

Stops at a clinic near her home and at another poorly equipped health facility offered insufficient help, forcing Azada and her family to trudge on to Faizabad, a provincial capital in Afghanistan's remote northeast corner.

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