For midwives, the closures have robbed them of their livelihoods in what remains a severely depressed economy. “I’m getting weaker and older everyday,” Gul Chaman, a midwife in Daikundi’s Waras Valley, told TIME, fearful of what would happen once she had exhausted her savings. “I’m afraid for me and my children’s future.”
Atifa, the midwife in Melmastok, is also afraid. She says she no longer even has the supplies to work privately. It simply isn’t safe, forcing her to turn away former patients, like Soghra, a young woman in her 30s who, a week before Atifa’s clinic shut down, told TIME that she was “terrified” about giving birth.
Tragically, her worst fears were realized when she went into labor in July. With no supplies to safely assist Soghra, Atifa directed her to another clinic around two hours away by car. “I don’t know if it happened on the way or at that clinic,” Atifa says, “but she lost her child.”
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