The Taliban and the police are hunting a man who cut off his wife's nose in Afghanistan, according to officials.
Reza Gul lost a significant amount of blood in the attack and was rushed to hospital in the northwest of the country on Monday.
A
spokesman for the governor of Faryab province said she would need
reconstructive surgery and arrangements are being made to transfer her
to Turkey.
It was not immediately clear why her husband, 25-year-old Mohammad Khan, attacked the mother-of-one.
Khan is believed to have recently come back from Iran.
He
had repeatedly beaten his wife since returning, according to Maymana
hospital director Fawzia Salimi, despite promising Taliban leaders he
would stop.
He had also taken another wife, aged just seven, according to Ms Salimi.
Police
and the intelligence agency are searching for Khan, who has fled the
village, said the governor's spokesman, Ahmad Jawed Bedar.
Taliban
gunmen are also hunting him and say he will be "dealt with according to
Sharia law", according to a spokesman for the group.
A photograph of the woman sparked outrage on social media.
"Such a brutal and barbaric act should be strongly condemned," said one women’s rights activist, Alema.
"Such incidents would not happen if the government judicial system severely punished attacks on women."
Domestic violence is widespread in Afghanistan and women are often denied constitutional rights designed to protect them.
Violence
in impoverished Fayrab province has risen at least 30% in the last
year, said Hafizullah Fetrat, head of the regional human rights
commission,
"It's
not just in Faryab," said Mr Fetrat."It is across the entire north of
the country - poverty, high unemployment, ignorance about marriage."
In
2010, an image of 18-year-old Bibi Aisha - who suffered a similar
attack by an abusive husband, was featured on the front page of Time
magazine.
It led to widespread support for Aisha, who was later taken to the US to be given a prosthetic nose.
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