Post-flood: A life of uncertainty on a roadside

Six months after the floods, a farming village in Sindh, its residents still live in limbo on a roadside.


Reuters February 01, 2011

RAMLI KHOSO: Six months after the epic floods demolished Ramli Khoso, a farming village in Sindh, its residents still live in limbo on a roadside.

Too poor to rebuild their homes, villagers living in tents can only pray the next monsoon season in July won’t bring more upheaval.

“We are hardly getting any help,” said Alimi Khoso, pointing to a dirty plaster around her two-month-old granddaughter’s leg, broken in an accident in a relief camp. “Where will we go if there are more floods. We don’t even have enough money to run away.”

The super floods began roaring through the country in late July last year, leaving about 11 million people homeless. Many communities in Sindh are still surrounded by floodwaters and hundreds of thousands of people still live in temporary shelters, even though more than $1 billion in flood aid has been delivered.

In Ramli Khosa, about 1,5OO people reside in rows of bare, white tents donated by Arab and Western aid groups. They must travel about a kilometre to fetch water in tough conditions felt in many flood-affected parts of the province.

During interviews in several villages, only a few people said they received compensation from authorities - Rs20,000. That doesn’t go far since prices remain unbearably high after floods destroyed crops and cut food supplies.

Farmers say it could be years before they are able to plant again. To survive, some toil as labourers, earning about a dollar a day. Government help is unlikely to come soon as the government remains preoccupied by political crises and already faces a host of other problems.

“The flood issue adds to the government’s long list of woes. The state is already stretched in many directions,” said Kamran Bokhari, South Asia director at STRATFOR, a global intelligence company.

Living through the disaster

People like Qurban Ali have been largely forgotten. Ali stood over some bricks - what’s left of his flattened house - glued together with a mixture of sand and cement to form a small frame, a tiny step towards recovery. “How can I plan to rebuild it without any help from the government,” he asked, as mangy dogs lingered nearby.

A group of angry men held up a document which promised a local official would deliver six sacks of staple foods. He delivered only three and demanded bribe, they alleged.

Ruling Pakistan People’s Party spokesperson Fauzia Wahab said the government was doing its best to help the flood victims. “We are providing the farmers free-of-charge fertiliser and seeds. But as you know we still have problems with cash,” she said.

Medicine is too expensive

Resentment is also growing elsewhere in Sindh, home province of President Asif Ali Zardari.

In Murad Chandio village, Pakistan Red Crescent volunteers unload sacks of flour from a truck as dozens of people who returned only a month ago line up for help. It may temporarily ease suffering. People there want long-term stability, and that can only come from the government. Families live beside wreckage, protected only by blankets hanging above them. It’s easy to see why many are terrified at the thought of new raging waters.

“People’s resilience has been really affected. Even any low level flooding in future is going to be a problem. They may not be able to cope,” said Penny Sims, a Red Cross spokeswoman.

Economic devastation has left families unable to care for their neediest loved ones. Ten-year-old Gulbahar Hidayatullah’s bone disease, rickets, is inflicting even more pain because relatives can’t afford to buy her enough medicine to treat it.

While some youngsters pass time playing beside the destruction left by the floods, a relative has to hold her up.

Other children have been set back in different ways. In Ramli Khoso, an 85-year-old toothless woman named Allah Rakhi walked barefoot with a tree branch she uses as a cane. She barely had the energy to express her biggest worry - her grandson may be deprived of an education because floods have kept him out of the classroom.

“I want him to have money so he can go to school, so he can get married one day,” she said, trembling. Others worry about just getting their children through the next few weeks or months.

In Adam Khan village, located beside a canal with stinking, stagnant water left by the floods, a woman lies in a tent.

She gave birth there a day earlier without medical attention because the cost of transport to a clinic was too steep. The infant yawns in the heat, flies swirling over her sweaty face.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 1st,  2011.

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