DHAKA: The three-month closure of Nepal’s main border crossing with India has led to a dangerous shortage of essential medicines and other supplies, including oxygen.

The Nepal Red Cross Society (NRCS) said on Saturday.

The landlocked Himalayan nation imports more than 50 percent of its medicine with the bulk of it coming from India.

‘Nearly 95 percent of Nepal’s population is affected by the shortages as most of the medicines and fuel is imported from India,’ Dibya Raj Paudel, spokesman of NRCS, told Al Jazeera.

Paudel said the situation was deteriorating by the day with no resolution in sight to end what Nepalese politicians say is an ‘unofficial blockade’ of the South Asian nation of 30 million people.

‘People in the capital, Kathmandu, are queuing from dawn to dusk to get fuel rationed by the government,’ Paudel said.

The three-month closure of Nepal’s main border crossing with India has led to a dangerous shortage of essential medicines and other supplies, including oxygen, the Nepal Red Cross Society (NRCS) said on Saturday.

The landlocked Himalayan nation imports more than 50 percent of its medicine with the bulk of it coming from India.

‘Nearly 95 percent of Nepal's population is affected by the shortages as most of the medicines and fuel is imported from India,’ Dibya Raj Paudel, spokesman of NRCS, told Al Jazeera.

Paudel said the situation was deteriorating by the day with no resolution in sight to end what Nepalese politicians say is an ‘unofficial blockade’ of the South Asian nation of 30 million people.

‘People in the capital, Kathmandu, are queuing from dawn to dusk to get fuel rationed by the government,’ Paudel said.

BDST: 2037 HRS, Nov 21, 2015
RR