The outbreak of water-borne diseases and malnutrition claimed the lives of six more infants in drought-hit Thar on Saturday.

All six infants breathed their last at Mithi's Civil Hospital, where they were brought in for treatment from their respective villages. With the latest series of fatalities, the death toll for 2018 alone has risen to 478.

The parents of the dead and ailing children, while talking to local reporters, complained of a lack of medicine in government-run hospitals and the reluctance of health officials to provide them with free ambulance service to shift their children as well as other patients to Hyderabad or Karachi.

Explore: In pictures: Ravaged by drought, Tharis forced to turn to greener pastures

They said that they were facing perhaps the worst-ever water crisis in their villages in the wake of a severe drought in what is a rain-dependent arid zone.

"Tens of thousands of Tharis are forced to drink the highly contaminated water of the wells, that too after travelling miles in very hostile weather conditions," they added.

The villagers demanded that both the federal and Sindh governments make sincere efforts to provide them with water at least — if not the requisite healthcare facilities — in their remote and sparse villages to save them from the crisis they are faced with.

They said that life in the desert region, especially in remote villages, was getting tougher with each passing day.

The villagers alleged that the Sindh government, instead of providing residents with basic facilities, was focused only on "the distribution of a few kilogrammes of wheat", that too among only those registered with the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra).

Health officials, meanwhile, claimed to have records of over 800 minors which they say were referred to hospitals in Hyderabad and Karachi for better treatment. It is not known how many of them survived.