Municipal mishap: Sewage water outside church discourages worshippers from entering

Our Lady of Fatima Church in Garden has sewage overflowing outside its gates

KARACHI: Outside the Our Lady of Fatima Church in Garden area; a foul odour and a pool of sewage water welcomes people coming to this house of worship.

This condition has been prevailing for the past two years as broken sewerage lines and gutter-laden lanes trouble churchgoers and residents living in the area.

Father Robert D' Silva of the parish admits that the number of churchgoers has gone down because of the dirt and filth around. "Gutters are choked and this has reduced the number of people who come here for prayers," he says.

Last Sunday, only 50 per cent of the thousands of Christians who live in the locality, came to the church. "The dirt is ruining the sanctity of the church," he feels. "People opt for St Lawrence church. When they come on foot here, their clothes get ruined. When they bring in vehicles, they get spoiled."



From Monday, 800 children will be starting school inside the parish, which worries Father D' Silva more. How will they be able to make it through? The situation on the road worsens when roadside vendors dump their trash on the road and are unwilling to get them removed, he adds.

Just outside the church, a teacher Dorothy Lucas Bernard complains that they are being forced to go inside their house of worship with dirty feet. Bernard feels embarrassed to call people and friends over as their neighbourhood looks like a slum area.

"To pass through the dirty water, people keep bricks and walk on them," she says. "The elderly can't take the risk and so they don't come to the church at all. We carry the younger ones."

On religious festivals and occasions, the community faces a challenge going inside the church without getting their new and clean clothes dirty.

Resident Jennifer Pereira points out that the area needs new sewage lines as the current ones are more than 50 years old. "We can't come to church," he says. "We are moving around in the dirt. This lack of hygiene also leads to diseases."

Pereira, and the rest of the people in his community, have complained several times to the authorities. They have raised the issue on social media and written letters to government officials but all these efforts have fallen on deaf ears. "Once I saw the gutter being cleaned only to see that the garbage was being dumped on the roads," he says.

Meanwhile, the district South deputy commissioner, Saleem Rajput, claimed he was unaware of the sewerage problem near the church. "This is a continuous process that gutters are being chocked and then cleaned of garbage," he said, adding that the problem would be sorted out soon.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 30^th, 2015.