INDIA’S blockade of Nepal has led to an acute shortage of medicines, with 300 lorryloads of drugs stuck at the border.

Indian border officials, claiming that protests against Nepal’s new secular republican constitution are putting drivers’ lives in danger, have for weeks prevented shipments of vital supplies from crossing the border.

Long queues of goods lorries and fuel tankers are stuck at the border town of Raxaul, waiting to cross to Birgunj on the Nepalese side.