Wordless Wednesday: Mothers of Afghanistan

We've been hearing, almost day after day after day, about the deteriorating political and military situation in Afghanistan, but hearing less about the cost (dar we call it "collateral"?) in human suffering and everyday health.

"Up to 100,000 people have been deprived of access to basic health services in different parts of Afghanistan over the past four months," the United Nations' humanitarian news service, IRIN, reports, "due largely to worsening insecurity, with attacks on health workers and health centres. [...] The new figure is in addition to the over 300,000 people who last year lost access to primary health facilities, mostly in the volatile south and southeast."

Some dismal facts:

• A 1,600 per 100,000 live births, mothers in Afghanistan have the third-highest maternal mortality rate in the world.
• Infant mortality is 135 per 1,000 live births (compared with less than 19 in the West Bank, less than 6 per 1,000 in the European Union, and 6.3 in the United States, according to 2008 figures in the World Factbook.
• Out of every 1,000 birth, 257 children will not survive to age 5.
• The probability at birth that a child will not survive to age 40 is a staggering 41.9 percent.

Wordless Wednesday Archive.