Haji Suleman and his family. Credit: Kamran Chaudhry/Caritas Pakistan
Jan 28 was a day with a difference for flood victims like Haji Suleman in a relief camp of Karachi , the southern metropolis.
The thumping of a platter gathered jubilant girls adorned in make-up and smiling children at Suleman’s camp as the sounds of merrymaking grew louder. Between the crowd, he sat crossed legged rhythmically moving his arms at the beat. Continue reading
Filed under Emergencies, Pakistan floods 2010
Monika Vrsanska on a field trip to Pakistan. Credit: CAFOD
by Monika Vrsanska, CAFOD programme officer for the Pakistan Emergency
Filed under Emergencies, Pakistan floods 2010
Elli Xenou in Pakistan. Credit: Caritas
By Elli Xenou, Caritas Coordinator Pakistan
I was at home in Athens on summer vacations when the phone rang. Cordaid’s project manager (Cordaid is Caritas Netherlands) sounded worried: “It’s raining two days now non-stop” he said, “something big is going to happen”. Then the first images of floods and destruction made it to the TV News. KPK Province of Pakistan, the area that was plagued by the IDP crisis last year, the area where most of NGOs were working still trying to alleviate the suffering of IDPs and conflict- affected populations, perhaps the most challenging area of Pakistan on the back of the tribal belt, heavily struck by militancy and talibanization was on the verge of a new disaster. Continue reading
Filed under Emergencies, Pakistan floods 2010
Soomri inside her new transitional shelter. Credit: Jessica Howell/Catholic Relief Services
By Jessica Howell, Programme and Advocacy Officer, Catholic Relief Services
“Ours was a love marriage,” said Soomri, a frail woman with almond-shaped eyes that seem to dance when thinks about her youth. “He was the only literate man in town,” she said of her husband, “And we were both favored by our parents.”
The 75-year-old mother of five and grandmother of 23 lives in a small village in the northeast corner of Pakistan’s Sindh province. Described by her extended family as easily distracted, Soomri seems like she’d just rather tell stories than worry about anything else. With whoever will listen to her, she talks … about her village and the weather and her children. But mostly she talks about her husband. Continue reading
Filed under Emergencies, Pakistan floods 2010
By Jessica Howell, Programme and Advocacy Officer, Catholic Relief Services
Dulshan Bajkani looks to be about 23 years old, but she says she doesn’t know for sure. Regardless of her age, she’s endured more in the last six months than any woman in her twenties should have to bear.
Her nightmare began in early August, when record rainfalls throughout Pakistan caused the nearby Indus River to overflow its banks. She remembers hearing about the floods on the news; some people the village left right away but many others thought the warnings were exaggerated and stayed. But the water did come – in the middle of the night – and Dulshan, her husband, and her three daughters fled quickly. Most people left everything behind in the panic that ensued, running away without shoes or scarves and having time only to grab frightened children. Continue reading
Filed under Emergencies, Pakistan floods 2010
CRS will help 2600 families in the north and 22,000 families in the south build transitional shelters. Photo by Maria Josephine Wijiastuti / CRS
CRS’s Maria Josephine Wijiastuti filed the following report from Pakistan.
Haran Dhanglo and her husband are farmers who work for a landlord in Noor Mohammad village, which was badly affected by the August 2010 flood. When the flood hit, she and her family moved away for two months. With their three children, they lived in tents with her neighbors and other people who were evacuated.
“It was really a difficult life, but we had no choice,” she says. “The flood washed away our homes and our villages—we lost everything. Now that the water has receded, my family has returned to the village.” Continue reading
Filed under Pakistan floods 2010
Denis Vienot, of Caritas France, speaking to media in Charsadda. Credit: Kamran Chaudhry, Caritas Pakistan
A Caritas delegation, comprising of officials from various countries, says visiting camps of the flood victims was a learning experience.
“There is a real need to assist the internally displaced people as quick as possible. It was an opportunity to meet a number of survivors and understand their need”, said Denis Vienot of Caritas France.
He was speaking to media on a recent relief distribution of aid among flood victims in Charsadda, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Caritas Pakistan distributed 900 charpoys (beds), bedding and hygiene kits to 450 victims in a tent village in Charsadda, one of the worst affected districts in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Continue reading
Filed under Caritas news, Pakistan floods 2010
Credit: Caritas Pakistan
By Eric Dayal, National Emergency Coordinator, Caritas Pakistan
I travelled to Nowshera for an aid distribution on Wednesday. When we went to do a survey a week before there were blocked roads and difficulties getting through. This time we didn’t have problems and traffic was flowing quite freely, but on our way there we did see places where the waters were still up to the roofs of some of the houses.
At that moment, it hadn’t rained for two days and the waters were going down in some places. Some people – although very few of them – were going back to their houses.
The items we gave out at the distribution were decided upon from the careful assessments we did the previous week. Among them were mattresses, pillows and sheets; hygiene kits that included things such as toothpaste and even nail clippers. Also, kitchen sets containing pans, plates, cutlery and also a “tawa” which is basically a pan in which people can make chapattis.
The distribution took place at the parish house where we received 230 families. Some of these families had been staying with relatives, others had been sleeping out in the open. The ones who were sleeping in the open air had gone up to higher places or were staying near the parish house.
The houses near the river bed had been completely washed away. People are coping at the moment despite having lost so much. Some of the children are so innocent and they don’t understand what’s happening. They just keep on playing.
One of the big difficulties people are facing is the loss of their jobs. They don’t have money and they don’t know if and when they’ll next get paid. Even if they do get paid, they don’t know if it will be as much as they usually get.
Women in that area keep to themselves, but the ones I spoke to told me that for them the big difficult was not having a home and no longer having a proper family life.
I think for the people I met at Nowshera it will take at least a couple of months to get back to any sort of normal life.
Filed under Caritas news, Emergencies, Pakistan floods 2010
Credit: Caritas Pakistan
By Laura Sheahen, Catholic Relief Services
“I was offered a glass of the brown river water yesterday,” says Lisa Beyl, a Catholic Relief Services (a US member of the Caritas confederation) programme manager in flood-stricken northern Pakistan. “It literally looks like mud. It is the dirtiest water I have ever seen in my life. I can’t believe that people are drinking it, but they are, out of necessity.”
As rains continue to pour down on the flooded country, hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis have been left homeless. Worse, they have no access to drinkable water.
“We have to drink water from the river but it is so dirty. But we have no other options because the floodwaters damaged our water source and washed away our pipes,” says a man in the northern town of Besham whose home and land were swept away. “My family is getting sick. Today, I took my 15-month-old son to the hospital because he has diarrhea and a high fever. If the water problem is not solved, I do not know what I will do.”
Caritas is readying kits including water purification tablets for thousands of people who cannot access clean water. “We’re telling people to filter water through cloth and then treat it with the purification tablets,” says Carolyn Fanelli, Acting Country Representative for CRS Pakistan. The kits also come with cookware for boiling water, and oral rehydration salts for those who suffer diarrhea.
Caritas will also get at the root of the problem—broken water pipes. Caritas has years of experience building water systems in mountainous regions of northern Pakistan, having helped villages after a 2005 earthquake destroyed pipelines. “About 100 water systems in the regions of Kohistan and Shangla are damaged,” says Fanelli. “We’re in the process of repairing five right now—one is almost fixed.” In coming weeks, Caritas engineers will fix more. “Villagers come to the CRS office daily asking for help to fix their water systems,” says Fanelli.
Caritas has already distributed the kits to hundreds of people in Balochistan. Over the next week, Caritas will distribute over 1500 shelter and hygiene kits to newly homeless families in the areas of Swat, Shangla and Kohistan. The kits contain plastic sheeting for shelter, kitchen supplies, bed mats, soap, and more, along with the water purification tablets and rehydration salts. Preventing waterborne diseases before mass outbreaks occur is key.
“This dirty water is very dangerous,” says the Besham resident. “The problem is not just for me and my family – our whole community is suffering because there is no clean water.”
This story first appeared on Catholic Relief Services’ website.
Filed under Emergencies, Pakistan floods 2010
A man evacuates his children through waist-deep waters after heavy flooding in Nowshera, located in Pakistan's northwest Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province August 1, 2010. REUTERS/Adrees Latif courtesy of Alertnet
Eric Dayal, Emergency Officer with Caritas Pakistan
Lahore
I’ve been out on an assessment in Sibi in the diocese of Quetta this week. Sibi is one of the hottest inhabited places in the world so it was very humid when I visited. So humid that you could hardly breath.
The people were in terrible conditions and had lost everything. About 80 percent of the houses had gone and there were just piles of mud around. Some of the people had been evacuated while others had gone up to higher ground. They were getting some food through the Government, but that was just once a day.
People were desperate for help in Sibi. They would pull on my hand and ask me to go and see where their houses had been. They really needed some help.
With the fields under water as well as the houses, people didn’t have anything to do. Some would just sit around waiting. The women would gather in one place while the males would try and get rid of the water in the houses that were still standing. The children, meanwhile, would play in the water and swim.
It’s a big problem for communities to leave the disaster area because of the water levels and the blocked roads. But by staying in the area the health risks increase and people can get things like cholera, stomach problems and skin problems on their feet when they wade through the floods. There’s also the possibility of snake bites. Continue reading
Filed under Caritas news, Emergencies, Pakistan floods 2010
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