After-effects: Thousands still displaced in Sindh

Many of the refugees want a life in Karachi.

KARACHI:

While the Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) Sindh seems to be wrapping up its flood relief efforts, the 6,000 people still in the Mauripur flood relief camp in Karachi continue to hope that they will register on the government’s radar.

Each tent has a story to tell. And it usually involves death, destruction and despair.

Siyani, 35, lost her newborn twin daughters shortly after they were born. Zareena wept as she pointed out the torn tent she and her three children live in. Her daughter died in the camp due to ailments brought about by the oppressive heat. She has no means of income, as her husband Allah Bachayo has not been able to find work since he is partially disabled.

Ameerzadi nurses her one-month old daughter, Abida, as the hot summer wind causes the tent walls to nearly cave in. “We have to borrow money to take a child to the hospital,” she says. “My child has been running a fever for two days but we have no money for medicine.”

Initially the camp was provided facilities by both the provincial government and non-governmental organisations. Roshni Helpline had set up a mobile school, and NGOs and the provincial administration provided rations. The police was deployed for security.

Residents say that all of the support stopped about five months ago. Ishraq Ahmed, the secretary-general of the camp committee, says drinking water is scarce and rations are only coming in via donations. He says that while at least 60% of the men in the camp have managed to find some sort of daily wage jobs, many in the camp go hungry every night.

According to the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), the PDMAs of Sindh and Balochistan were told in April to distribute relief goods in ‘spontaneous camps’ and ensure the return of the displaced.

However, the camp residents – who were relocated to the camp from their homes in Shahdadkot, Jacobabad and Shikarpur – are adamant that they will not return, though their reasons seem to have little to do with the flood.

“The waderas will ask us to repay our debts – ranging from Rs80,000 to Rs200,000 – how will we do this?” asks Mohammad Awais. “Even if the government gives us land the feudal landlords will take it from us.”

Awais says that they want their children to grow up in Karachi and build a better life in a place where there is infrastructure, education and jobs.

Ahmed lists the number of government officials who “promised” that they would be housed on the plot the camp is located on. Yet many of those officials have never returned to the camp, and they remain in limbo as to their status.

“There is nothing left in the flooded areas,” says Mohammad Baksh Inam. “There are new warnings of floods. What will we go back to? We don’t have any land of our own.”

Thousands remain displaced after the floods, but it is difficult to ascertain an exact number because many of the relief camps have closed down. According to a March 2011 assessment by OCHA, at least 100,000 people (105,083 people in 132 camps) were still displaced in Sindh. Another 550 people are displaced in Punjab’s Muzaffargarh and Layyah districts.



Published in The Express Tribune, July 14^th, 2011.