Children at risk from disease in Pakistan – Foreign Policy/RTÉ World Report
September 8th, 2010
http://afpak.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/09/08/dispatch_from_sindh_children_at_risk_from_disease
http://www.rte.ie/news/worldreport/
In the ad-hoc child malnutrition facility at the Railway Hospital in Sukkur, mothers cradle and nurse their toddlers, all
Mother Zeina feeds Zamina. (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
emaciated and weakened. A row of beds runs either side of the ward in the brown and gray-painted Raj-era hospital.
Three year-old Zamina was malnourished before the floods hit, but the flight from the family farm in Thulla to this heaving city in northern Sindh worsened the tiny girl’s condition considerably, says Dr Sakina Jafri, pausing to speak as she moved from bed to bed.
“With the threat of disease all around, young children are most prone,” she said. “And when they are so young and are malnourished, it only adds to that level of vulnerability.”
UNICEF Director Anthony Lake says that almost 9 million children are at risk of disease, an alarm call rung out in tandem with World Food Program head Josette Sheeran’s warning of a second wave of disaster looming even as flood waters slowly recede.
Authorities have also struggled to cope with a growing number of cases of severe diarrhea and malaria caused by dirty water that offers a perfect breeding ground for insects and disease. (more…)
Guns in the time of cholera – The Irrawaddy
September 8th, 2010
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=19410
After three suicide attacks in Pakistan during the past week, doing flood relief means dealing with insecurity as well as the threat of disease
This woman pictured at a Saudi-run camp at Abad, Sindh province. (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
ON THE ROAD IN SINDH PROVINCE, PAKISTAN – The bridge leads out of Sukkur to the town of Larkana, a two-hour drive to the north-west and closer to the restive province of Balochistan, home of a long-running separatist movement and, more recently, al-Qaeda and the Tehrik-e-Taliban.
The turmoil caused by the monsoon floods has brought trouble to towns and cities that have been relatively calm and secure. Coming downhill over the ramp of the bridge, a crowd of around three hundred mainly men and boys were blocking half the road, fists raised and pointing toward whatever traffic came their way. Too late to avoid the group, we swung off as some made less-than-hospitable gestures in our direction, taking the first right near the foot of the bridge. However that was not evasive action, it was the intended route, and the whole thing was over in a matter of seconds.
Later we heard that a group of around 2000 people had blocked the road. All were homeless after floods inundated their homes in southern Pakistan, and were voicing their anger at the slow relief effort. No violence was reported, but with word out about the group, traffic avoided the road until the evening.
This type of incident has been repeated across Pakistan since the floods first hit the country’s north almost 6 weeks ago. Anger at the country’s Government and with individual politicians is rife, in Pakistani media reports, and in interviews with people affected by the disaster.
The country’s military, however, has at least been seen to be working, with neatly-arranged camps run by the Pakistani airforce sitting either side of the bridge where the angry crowd gathered. The army has the logistical capacity and manpower to be effective, in a way that the civilian Government does not. It is another reminder of the power of the military in a country that has been ruled by the army for more than half of the time as an independent state, since 1947. (more…)
“We’ve been set back 30 years” – The Diplomat
September 2nd, 2010
http://the-diplomat.com/2010/09/02/after-the-flood-in-pakistan/
Garhi Khuda Baksh, Sindh Province, Pakistan – As the floodwaters slowly recede and the Indus River empties into the
Without shelter, some flood-displaced people just shelter under furniture. Garhi Khuda Baksh. (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
Arabian Sea, the full impact of what Pakistan’s Foreign Minister on Wednesday described as the worst disaster in the country’s history is becoming clearer.
A death toll of just over 1600 is set to rise, with the sad likelihood is that more dead bodies will be found as the waters drain. Rotting carcasses of hundreds of thousands of drowned livestock will add to the threat of disease, as the river drains into the sea and the dead animals are exposed to the blistering 40 degree heat
Over 3.5 million are thought to be homeless in Sindh, with six million displaced nationwide. The threat of epidemic is real, with people on the move in blistering heat amid vast, often stagnant, floodwaters. Aidworkers have reacted with alarm to reports of cholera in northern Sindh province. “If there is just one case of cholera, then that can lead to hundreds, if not thousands, given that this is an airborne disease and spreads quickly”, said Dr Wasi Aslam, based at the Railway Hospital in Sukkur.
Over four weeks after the disaster began, thousands of flood survivors and evacuees can be seen on roadsides, still without any tents or shelter. The United Nations says donors have paid around 63 percent of the US$459 million needed to fund flood relief over the next three months. However, to date, only a fraction of those who need aid have received it, and the evidence of this can be seen at roadside and in fields all over Sindh. While many are in camps, with tents provided by NGOs or by the Pakistani military, others have nothing. Anger is growing, with roadblocks and protests in Sukkur and other towns, expressing disgruntlement with the relief effort.
Outside Garhi Khuda Baksh, Sindh Province, men, women and children lie under upturned beds which have been propped up at an angle with sticks or broken-off tree branches. Those I spoke with understand clearly what the disaster that has befallen their country means. “We have been set back thirty years”, said Fatima, a mother of seven ,and one of twelve people seeking shade under a rough-and-ready shelter made from plastic sheeting and bamboo, loosely tied-down with rope and a peg on two corners, running diagonally from top-right to bottom-left. (more…)
Ebb and flow in flood relief – Asia Times
August 31st, 2010
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/LI01Df02.html
IDPs shelter in the shadow of the Bhutto mausoluem. (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
LARKANA, Sindh province – It is 40 degrees Celsius in the mid-afternoon. Buffalo submerge themselves in floodwaters covering farmland to cool off. Only their heads are above water as they snort and shake to dismiss the morass of flies buzzing around.
For many among the estimated 6 million people now homeless by the floods in Pakistan, such comfort remains elusive. Many are still without basic shelter and rest under trees, under their carts, and beneath makeshift canopies fashioned from beds, blankets and whatever bits of timber or trees they can find.
On Sunday, teams of foreign and local non-governmental organizations (NGOs) attempted to reduce the vast deficit by supplying 500 families in Larkana with temporary shelters, along with basic survival kits such as jerrycans and buckets to fetch and store water, and kitchen sets to enable families to cook. A drop in the ocean in a many ways, but something nonetheless.
Larkana’s pre-flood population of around 345,000 has been swollen to over half a million, as the Indus River expanded to 40 times its usual size in places. The roaring, unstoppable river has spawned a tidal wave of people – on the roads, into towns and cities, all seeking refuge, shelter, food and dry land. A vast ebb and flow of water and people, and of tear for the vast losses incurred. (more…)
Hands-on at the dykes of courage – The Sunday Tribune/Today’s Zaman/Evening Herald
August 28th, 2010
http://www.tribune.ie/news/international/article/2010/aug/29/building-dykes-of-courage/
http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/news-220700-impressions-hands-on-at-the-dykes-of-courage.html
http://www.herald.ie/world-news/huge-challenge-faced-by-the-resolute-victims-2315605.html
Women and children camped out at the roadside after their homes were destroyed. (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
On the road in northern Sindh, Pakistan – Dirty, tired and bedraggled, Imran beckons us over to the womenwho fled their village. They came thirty miles on foot only to spend almost three weeks here in the dead heat at this makeshift camp outside Sukkur in southern Pakistan.
“Take some photographs”, he implores. “You sure this is OK?”, I reply, our conversation translated from Sindhi to English and back again by Nizam Ud Din Bharchood, a long time charity worker for Hands, a NGO based in southern Pakistan. “Go ahead, he insists!”, assured Nizam.
Under normal circumstances, foreigners cannot take photos of women or girls in Pakistan, but Imran waives this, showing a canny insight into how best to raise awareness about his people’s plight. The ladies, adorned in their assorted pinks, greens and orange veils, clasp their children close and sit atop a rusted old bed, one of the few possessions they managed to carry from one of their houses.
Photo taken, Imran tells me more about their plight. “We are here twenty days now, without any shelter and only a little food”. That is some ordeal, for women and small children. One woman pipes up, unsolicited. “Some people dropped off food here and we give thanks for that”, she said. “But it was done in a disrespectful way – they just threw it off the back of a truck, like they were feeding animals”. (more…)
Pakistan Floods: Awaiting succour in Sukkur – Irish Examiner/Eureka Street/Crikey/SouthAsiaMasala
August 26th, 2010
http://www.crikey.com.au/2010/08/26/pakistan-dolphins-play-as-floods-bring-intense-suffering/
Watching the waters rise again. Shahdadkot, Sindh province. (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
SUKKUR, Pakistan. On the road in from the airport, the water shimmered under the moonlight as men, women and children sat in the dark, near the would-be lakeshore. During the day, river dolphins can usually be spotted in the nearby river. It sounds idyllic, you might think, but not so. This dusty and ramshackle town is at the front-line of one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters in living memory. Usually there is no water lapping up at the roadside, and the only people there would be those out for an evening snack after the daytime Ramadan fast. But since torrential monsoon rain sent the Indus River spilling onto towns and farmland the length of Pakistan, an area the size of England has been deluged.
In downtown Sukkur, I spoke to Ashraf, who said he had left his family at the outskirts, before coming into town to buy some food. “We managed to gather up some of our possessions before the waters came, but we did not have much warning. Our home is under water completely. I have enough money to feed my children for another couple of days, that is all.” Like a few more flood victims I encountered, he had to pay three times the normal price for a bus to the city, as opportunists capitalise on people’s desperation, to make a quick rupee.
Nature’s unwitting cruelty followed up, here and there, then, by man’s calculated greed. The last time a natural disaster hit this country, 80,000 people died in just thirteen seconds when an earthquake rocked Pakistani Kashmir. This time, the death-toll is much lower and the disaster is unfolding slowly over many weeks. However, the impact is vast – running the entire 1,976 mile length of the Indus River from the mountainous north of Pakistan, where that 2005 quake hit, to these flood-prone plains in the south. (more…)
Young blood – The Irrawaddy
July 12th, 2010
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=18950
BANGKOK—The number of child soldiers in Burma is impossible to verify and recruitment appears to be ongoing in the Burmese armed forces and ethnic militias, despite some positive steps to curb the practice.
Burma’s ruling military has long stood accused of a practice perhaps better known in west Africa’s civil wars, popularized by scenes of drugged 12-year-olds firing AK-47s at Leonardo DiCaprio’s mercenary character in the movie “Blood Diamond,” which was set in Sierra Leone.
In 2002, Human Rights Watch estimated that there were about 70,000 child soldiers in Burma, a figure that has never been effectively confirmed or rebutted. The NGO Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers says Burma as the only Asian country where government armed forces forcibly recruit children.
According to the US State Department’s newly-released “Trafficking in Persons” report: “The regime’s widespread use of and lack of accountability in forced labor and recruitment of child soldiers is particularly worrying and represents the top causal factor for Burma’s significant trafficking problem.”
Worldwide, there are thought to be between 250,000 to 300,000 combatants under the age of 18 in state armies or militia groups.
Speaking in Bangkok, International Labor Organisation (ILO) liaison officer in Burma Steve Marshall told The Irrawaddy that “Whilst a lot more still needs to be done, the [Burmese] army has taken positive steps toward enforcing the minimum age for recruitment and discharging children found to have been illegally recruited.” (more…)
Gas revenues fund Burma nuke programme – The Irrawaddy
July 5th, 2010
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=18876
Billions of dollars in gas revenues have been siphoned away by the Burmese military junta and are helping fund a clandestine nuclear weapons program, according to a new report released on Monday in Paris by international environmental group, EarthRights International (ERI).
Titled “Energy Insecurity: How Total, Chevron, and PTTEP Contribute to Human Rights Violations, Financial Secrecy, and Nuclear Proliferation in Burma (Myanmar),” the report comes hot on the heels of an exposé by exiled Burmese news agency Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB)—based on material from Burmese army defectors—which added credence to allegations that the military rulers of Burma are seeking nuclear weapons technology and are in breach of UN Security Council resolutions on North Korea.
ERI says that this activity is likely to be funded by revenues from the Yadana Gas field in the Bay of Bengal. Former International Atomic Energy Agency director Robert Kelley described the nuclear activity taking place in Burma as “useful only for weapons.” (more…)
Post-Nargis Hopes Dashed as Election Looms – The Irrawaddy
April 29th, 2010
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=18346
The faint promise suggested by the relative freedoms granted to Burmese civil society after Cyclone Nargis is fading, as the ruling junta imposes new restrictions ahead of the scheduled 2010 elections.
In a report released today titled “I Want to help my Own People”– State Control and Civil Society in Burma after Cyclone Nargis,” Human Rights Watch said that the junta “continues to deny basic freedoms and places undue restrictions on aid agencies, despite significant gains in rehabilitating areas devastated by Cyclone Nargis two years ago.” (more…)
Energy Companies in Burma Urged to Disclose Payments – The Irrawaddy
April 27th, 2010
http://www.irrawaddy.org/highlight.php?art_id=18329
Section of the Yadana gas pipeline from Burma to Thailand. (Photo: The Irrawaddy)
Landmark legislation currently before the US Congress could force oil, gas and mining companies to disclose information about payments to governments of countries in which they invest around the world, including Burma.
If passed, the US Energy Security through Transparency Act will require all oil, gas and mining companies registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission to disclose data on payments made to foreign governments.
The NGO Earthrights International (ERI) said that “this will impact nearly every major oil and gas company around the world,” given that foreign companies must register with the SEC to do business in the US.
ERI’s Matthew Smith told a press conference in Bangkok today that this would also put pressure on Chinese and other Asian companies investing in Burma’s natural resources to comply.
Heightening pressure on Total, Chevron and Thailand’s PTTEP —three companies involved in the Yadana gas project and pipeline in Burma—an initiative launched on Tuesday in Bangkok called on the companies to reveal payments made to the Burmese military regime over the 18 years since Total signed a production sharing contract with Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE). The pending US legislation will not apply retrospectively, meaning that companies will only have to disclose payments going forward. (more…)
