‘All we need is a home,’ say women displaced by deadly floods in southern Pakistan

KARACHI: Fouzia Imdad, 25, migrated along with her husband and in-laws to the southern Pakistani port city of Karachi after floods washed away their home in Sindh’s Naushahro Feroze district in August. Fouzia’s family is one of hundreds of others who have been compelled to take shelter in tightly packed rooms at government-run schools in Karachi, where there is no sanitation, health care or livelihood.

Floods have ravaged large swathes of land in Pakistan, with the southern Sindh province worst affected by water torrents and where families and children are at special risk of disease and homelessness.

Hundreds of families have taken refuge along the highways, while others have migrated to the provincial capital of Karachi.

“All we need is a home for ourselves, we appeal to the government for our own shelter. Our men can’t leave us and children are all unemployed,” Imdad told Arab News on Thursday.

“If we get shelter, we will earn a living for ourselves. These people are taking good care of us but for how long they are going to keep and feed us?”

Many of the flood-affected families have been accommodated by authorities at government schools in Karachi’s Gulshan and Gadap towns. Roughly 600 migrants have been placed at each school comprising only 10 rooms and the affectees cannot do much about it.

Arab News visited three such schools housing flood affectees in Sachal Goth area, where men, women and children had no clue of their life after the deadly floods washed away their homes and livelihoods.

“Everyone is living in the same room, the bathroom is quite dirty. It is a very tough situation but we can’t help it, we can’t fight for facilities here,” said Alina, a teenaged girl who only gave her first name and migrated along with her family from Naushahro Feroze a week ago.

“The food is good but there is no arrangement for sleeping. There isn’t enough water either. We lost everything back home. Our houses were filled with water, we are left with nothing.”

Residents and charity organizations in Karachi are generously donating relief goods, particularly food, but there has been a dearth of health facilities for the displaced families.

Women at these schools were more concerned about the health of their children, many of whom were down with fever.

“We are getting medicines, but the fever isn’t going away. We don’t get breakfast. We mostly get biryani and other spicy food, but our children do not eat spicy food,” said 28-year-old Tameeza Khatoon.

For women, privacy has also been an issue as multiple families are placed in a single room.

“There are too many people so there isn’t a proper space to rest,” said Uzma Khatoon, 20, who migrated along with her husband and in-laws from Qasim village of Naushahro Feroze two weeks ago.

“If you are on your periods, this isn’t the place for you because there are so many men roaming around. It’s my second day of periods and I am in a lot of pain. Young girls can’t bear the pain so it is tough for them here.”

Javed Shah, head master of the Government Boys Sindhi Primary School, said the displaced families lacked discipline, while the government did not provide any funds to accommodate them.

“Schools are an easy target to place these people at, but the government does not provide any funds for the school. We arrange funds for the school through our resources and NGOs and these people cause havoc at the school,” he said.

“We suffered it in 2010 when these people took away fans and other things, used our furniture light fire to cook their food. The government isn’t doing anything about it.”

Shah said the monitoring officer sought data when she visited the school a couple of days ago, but no step was taken to keep track of the number of families. There was no record of these people that could be shared with anyone, he added.

There was no official around to address these administrative concerns. A male doctor, however, was present at the school for check-up and providing medicines.

Asked about the absence of a female physician, East Deputy Commissioner Raja Tariq Chandio said there was a woman gynecologist available at the Khatoon-e-Pakistan School Camp.

“Privacy, no doubt, is an issue as these camps are overcrowded. The government is trying to relocate these displaced people to another place where they can live more comfortably,” he said, adding authorities were trying their best to facilitate the afeectees.

“I wrote a letter to the commissioner to get the [nearby] Dow Medical Institute onboard for medical facilities. People residing in these camps will get free treatment from there and the government will bear its expenses.”