80-yr-old leaves sons who abandoned ill mother

KARACHI: “I will not travel with my sons. They killed my wife.”

These damning words come from 80-year-old Abdullah Banglani. He arrived at Karachi’s Cantt station on Wednesday by train from Jacobabad.

“I will never forgive them,” he says. “When the floods were heading towards our village, my sons took their wives and children and left my ailing wife alone in the house and the water swept her away.”

Banglani was in Jacobabad city at the time visiting his daughter. “Otherwise I would have carried her on my shoulders,” he says. His wife Momal had fractured her legs in a road accident a few weeks ago and could not move.

“I have five sons, but they all left my Momal to be swept away by the floods. How can I go with them?” Despite numerous entreaties, the heartbroken man boarded another bus.

Fresh arrivals

Banglani was one of the many people who waited to be bussed to a camp by the City District Government Karachi. These people have come from across the province without any luggage.

They said that they did not have time to grab even the most basic supplies before the floods hit their areas.

Nabi Bux Meerani, who hails from Raja Bijarani Goth, Kandhkot, said that two of his cousins were swept away with the torrents. He spotted a few bodies floating in canals on his way to Karachi, but said that government officials were hiding the fact that a lot more people had been killed than they were letting on.

Around one thousand people from Kashmore, Kandhkot, Jacobabad, Shikarpur, Sukkur and Larkana arrived in Karachi by two trains. Officials from the revenue department had set up a camp at the City Railway Station to slot them in groups.

Rescued but lost

Despite the government’s “arrangements” for flood survivors at the railway station, people at the Cantt Station said that they are still waiting for the government to help them.

“We were rescued by the Army from Jacobabad and were brought to Karachi in a helicopter,” said 40-year-old Zohra, who was sitting with five women.

Upon arrival, however, they were told to go to the city, which they are not familiar with. “We don’t know where our men are,” she said. “Someone told us that a relief camp has been set up at the railway station, but we have been waiting here for two days with our children and without any idea of what to do.”

Camps

Around 22,228 flood survivors are currently living in six camps across the city, said revenue deputy district officer Shahzaib Kakar, who added that 7,000 people are residing in the tent village at Razzaqabad, Bin Qasim Town. An additional 8,860 people are living in Gulshan-e-Maymar, 1,200 in Cattle Colony, 5,000 in Keamari, 2,000 in Bhittaiabad, 1,200 in Sachal Goth and 500 in the Government College of Technology, SITE Town.

“Right now, we can accommodate around 50,000 people in different camps. More camps can be set up if necessary,” he said.

Kakar said that while tents have been set up in some places to accommodate the growing number of Internally Displaced People (IDPs), a large number of flood survivors are living in government schools and colleges, where classes have been temporarily postponed. Medical camps have also been set up in these areas, he added.

When asked about the death of three children at the relief camps, Kakar said that their condition was very serious when they came to Karachi and they died because they could not recover. Official sources said, however, that some camps, including the one in Razzaqabad, are overcrowded which is why there are greater chances of disease outbreaks there.

Gulshan-e-Iqbal revenue deputy district officer Mohammed Khan Rind said that a woman has given birth to a child in the Sachal Goth relief camp. The condition of both mother and child is believed to be normal.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 19th, 2010.