Follow Us on Google News
KABUL: Suhaila Siddiq, Afghanistan’s only female lieutenant general and one of a small number of women to hold a ministerial post in the country, died in hospital at the age of 72.
According to details, Suhaila Siddiq, also a well-known surgeon, had Alzheimer’s disease for the last six years. The country’s top leaders, medical professionals and women were among those mourning her death.
Abdullah Abdullah, a former de facto prime minister and foreign minister, said her role in establishing a place for women in the fields of medicine, military and in wider society had been “commendable and undeniable”.
She was born in 1948 in Kabul and studied at the Kabul Medical University, but completed her medical studies from Moscow State University. The 72-year-old surgeon served as the Minister of Public Health in Afghanistan from December 2001 to 2004.
Siddiq served 36 years in Kabul’s Daoud Khan Military Hospital as a surgeon. She was Afghanistan’s only woman to have the title of a lieutenant general. Ms Siddiq first came to prominence during the Soviet era, when she was awarded the title of general by the pro-Moscow government.
