The floods in Pakistan have spontaneously created makeshift camps to help millions of refugees. But for the victims, the relief of being out of danger quickly turns to despair when they realize they’ve lost everything.
It took just four hours to completely flood the small village of farmer Altaf Hussain near the historic city of Ranipur in southeastern Sindh province. Like thousands of displaced people, Hussain is currently housed in a converted shelter camp in the capital Karachi. The misery he experienced is etched in his memory.
“It was midnight when the water hit our village. I was already awake and expecting something to happen because it had rained continuously for the past 30 hours,” Hussain, a father of four, told Anadolu Agency news agency. And something happened. Incessant monsoon rains caused the nearby Thari Mirwah Canal to burst its banks. The entire city of Ranipur, located about 420 kilometers from Karachi, was flooded. The panicked residents had to rush out of their homes and get themselves to safety.
tidal wave
“It took me a few seconds to realize what was going on because of the loud screams from neighboring houses. I quickly woke up my children and sent them to the roof,” recalls Hussain. There was a horrible scene. “The flashlights and the bright light of our mobile phones made it difficult for us to look around us at first, but we soon saw a huge tidal wave approaching our village.”
At first Hussain thought he and his family could survive on the roof, but within hours he had to flee as the streets and houses were flooded by the water. A timely operation by the army forces rescued the stranded villagers, including 20 members of Hussain’s family.
The village’s 500 houses have been badly damaged or washed away. “There is nothing left. All houses and crops have been destroyed’, says Hussain. His family spent two nights without shelter along the main road where an army boat dropped them off. A truck eventually took them to a relief camp.
Panic situation
Hussain and his family are among the refugees who are being taken into one of the makeshift reception camps. Along highways, in schools, at military bases; displaced Pakistanis are being taken care of in various places. In Nowshera, in the northwestern province of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, a technical school has been converted into a shelter for about 2,500 people. Pakistani refugees have limited access to food aid and water to wash themselves.
The classrooms are occupied by families who arrived first and took their chance to find some privacy there. Other Pakistani refugees sit shoulder to shoulder in the corridors, where the few belongings they could take with them are piled up.
The tented camp is run by several local humanitarian organizations, political parties and administrative officials who are overwhelmed by the scale of the disaster. Volunteers hand out tents, mattresses, water, lentils or bread. “It’s a panic situation,” said Mushfiq ur Rehman, an official from the region who helps the local government oversee food distribution in the camp. “There is plenty of food, but people are panicking because they are not sure if they will have another meal,” he explains.
Humiliated
Older women queue up at the food distribution to make sure they get their share of the food. The heat becomes unbearable when the few working fans stop spinning due to a power outage. There is no shower and very few toilets are available. “Our self-esteem is at stake (…) I stink, but there’s no place to shower,” said Fazal e Malik, who shares a tent with seven members of his family. “Our women also have problems and feel humiliated,” he says.
When food aid arrives at the school, desperate families storm the trucks and are sometimes beaten back with sticks by the police. “People are sending humanitarian aid, but the distribution is not well organized at all,” Yasmin complains. “There are regular riots and people have to fight for food. In the end, some get more and others get nothing,” she said.
Pakistani President Shahbaz Sharif helped distribute relief supplies on Saturday:
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