The area everyone forgot
“These people are waiting for a miracle,” Mankyal resident Abdul Latif laughs bitterly as he surveys the wretched.
SWAT:
It’s a gruelling trek to UC Mankyal. One has to navigate thick alpine forests before arriving at the perilously steep dirt track that starts from Madyan Valley and traverses what seems like an entire mountain range. Little wonder the area is gripped by the worst kind of shortages of food, water and medicines.
The dirt track through the forest, however, is alive. People walk bent at the waist, at times through the night, carrying food supplies and other essentials on their backs. Occasionally, they’ll stop to buy tea or a bean-based broth from child entrepreneurs who roam the lonely forests as if they were playing on the village streets.
The first structure I see in Makyal is a free medical camp set up by the administration of Swat Public School and College. More than 500 patients, including a large number of children and old people, wait anxiously for attention and medical supplies. Ten children, I’m told, waited in vain.
“These people are waiting for a miracle,” Mankyal resident Abdul Latif laughs bitterly as he surveys the wretched and the despairing. “This is the first medical camp in our area and the staff has been overwhelmed by the extent of problems – everyone has diahorrhea, cholera and skin diseases.”
Zor Kaley village resident Talemand Qureshi pipes in. “Thank God, it was daytime and people managed to scramble to higher ground otherwise the casualties would have been far, far higher,” he shudders. “It’s changed the map of Mankyal.”
But even the simple act of living is proving difficult. “The floods washed away 63 houses, agriculture lands, livestock and our livelihoods,” says Latif. “Bringing a 20-kg bag of flour to Mankyal costs more than Rs2,000 and a full day’s worth of travel.”
Hit even harder were the eight villages across the river. Zarin Gujjar is a local engineer who mobilised 200 villagers on both sides to construct a wooden bridge across the river within 24 hours, which allowed the trapped villagers reach this area. “Those people would have died, had the bridge not been built,” Gujjar says simply. “We couldn’t even communicate with the people on that side; the river drowned out even our shouts. So we built this bridge by pantomiming actions to communicate. We did not wait for the government because we knew they’d never come.”
Qureshi nods sagely. “Government authorities have not even looked this way as yet. If we wait for them, we’ll be waiting ten years for rehabilitation,” he laughs.
But the upbeat tones and the can-do attitude of the hardy locals aren’t blinding everyone to the extent of the odds stacked against them. Amjad Ali is a local philanthropist who was among the team that set up the medical camp. “I’ve seen such hunger and helplessness in the eyes of these people,” he says. “The night we arrived, they’d been left with only cabbage and spinach to eat. Unless the government and other philanthropists get here in time, these people will starve to death.”
Published in The Express Tribune, August 31st, 2010.
It’s a gruelling trek to UC Mankyal. One has to navigate thick alpine forests before arriving at the perilously steep dirt track that starts from Madyan Valley and traverses what seems like an entire mountain range. Little wonder the area is gripped by the worst kind of shortages of food, water and medicines.
The dirt track through the forest, however, is alive. People walk bent at the waist, at times through the night, carrying food supplies and other essentials on their backs. Occasionally, they’ll stop to buy tea or a bean-based broth from child entrepreneurs who roam the lonely forests as if they were playing on the village streets.
The first structure I see in Makyal is a free medical camp set up by the administration of Swat Public School and College. More than 500 patients, including a large number of children and old people, wait anxiously for attention and medical supplies. Ten children, I’m told, waited in vain.
“These people are waiting for a miracle,” Mankyal resident Abdul Latif laughs bitterly as he surveys the wretched and the despairing. “This is the first medical camp in our area and the staff has been overwhelmed by the extent of problems – everyone has diahorrhea, cholera and skin diseases.”
Zor Kaley village resident Talemand Qureshi pipes in. “Thank God, it was daytime and people managed to scramble to higher ground otherwise the casualties would have been far, far higher,” he shudders. “It’s changed the map of Mankyal.”
But even the simple act of living is proving difficult. “The floods washed away 63 houses, agriculture lands, livestock and our livelihoods,” says Latif. “Bringing a 20-kg bag of flour to Mankyal costs more than Rs2,000 and a full day’s worth of travel.”
Hit even harder were the eight villages across the river. Zarin Gujjar is a local engineer who mobilised 200 villagers on both sides to construct a wooden bridge across the river within 24 hours, which allowed the trapped villagers reach this area. “Those people would have died, had the bridge not been built,” Gujjar says simply. “We couldn’t even communicate with the people on that side; the river drowned out even our shouts. So we built this bridge by pantomiming actions to communicate. We did not wait for the government because we knew they’d never come.”
Qureshi nods sagely. “Government authorities have not even looked this way as yet. If we wait for them, we’ll be waiting ten years for rehabilitation,” he laughs.
But the upbeat tones and the can-do attitude of the hardy locals aren’t blinding everyone to the extent of the odds stacked against them. Amjad Ali is a local philanthropist who was among the team that set up the medical camp. “I’ve seen such hunger and helplessness in the eyes of these people,” he says. “The night we arrived, they’d been left with only cabbage and spinach to eat. Unless the government and other philanthropists get here in time, these people will starve to death.”
Published in The Express Tribune, August 31st, 2010.