The parched land: Relief operations offer only a temporary solution for Tharparkar

Jamatud Dawa’s Hafiz Abdul Rauf asks the government to address the root cause of the problem.

MITHI: Around half a dozen camps have been set up at Kashmir Chowk of Mithi city, where medical aid and relief goods are being provided to citizens of the city and its adjoining areas.

Representatives and volunteers of the People’s Primary Healthcare Initiative, Rangers, Jamatud Dawa (JD), Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) and Pakistan Peoples Party have all set up camps at the site. The majority of people were seen heading to the JD’s Falah-e-Insanyat Foundation (FIF) and JI camps where they were being provided with medical treatment and relief goods, including first aid, medications, drinking water, juices and biscuits.

FIF chairperson Hafiz Abdul Rauf, who was working at the camp with the other volunteers, believed that drought in Tharparkar was not a new phenomenon, adding that the death of children and animals was due to the non-availability of water.

“The condition of animals is even more pathetic than humans,” he lamented. “What the people desperately need at the moment is medical attention,” said Rauf, regarding the prevailing situation in the desert. He claimed that his organisation had been working in Tharparkar for the last 12 years. The FIF has made 500 water wells in different areas of the district. “We are not here to make seminaries and mosques. We want to help people, irrespective of their religious beliefs.”

Published in The Express Tribune, March 10^th, 2014.