KHYBER AGENCY - AHMAD NABI - Dozens of tribal children hailing from Sheen Kamar area of tehsil Bara, Khyber Agency, have been suffering from malaria, diarrhoea, cholera and other diseases, while health facilities are negligible, tribesmen of the area complaints on Monday.
Meenadar and Nabeel Jan Afridi, residents of Sheen Kamar, a remote area of tehsil Bara, while talking to this scribe said that Sheen kamar comprises 500 houses of local tribal but poor law and order situation being faced by them has deprived them of their basic needs of life. They said that all health centres in the area have been closed and medicines are rare. Meenadar said due to rise in temperature, constant power outages and lack of health facilities, the epidemics of malaria, diarrhoea and cholera have spread in the whole locality. Two to three children of every family have got infected and if timely assistance was not extended to them, scores of infants would lose their lives, he regretted.
Nabeel Jan Afridi asked the health authorities to dispatch forthwith health teams to the area and provide enough medicines to tackle the problems on its initial stage.
When the Agency Surgeon, Dr Sameen Shinwari was contacted on the matter he said,  "We can feel residents' pain and the health department is ready to provide every possible medical aid to the affectees but at the same time he expressed reservation over the security situation prevailing in the area.
He said if the forces ensure security to health officials, they were ready to send out emergency health teams and can establish medical camp in the area to treat the ailing tribal.
It is worth mentioning here that for the last three and half years military operation is in progress in Bara against militants that has been affecting every sphere of life. The situation has displaced thousands of local tribesmen, besides hundreds of civilian casualties and injuries.