When isolated by floodwaters, families have no choice but to use boats for transportation; even children must learn the survival skill of rowing. Here in India’s Morigaon district, one week of rains in August affected 27,000 hectares of land. Credit: Priyanka Borpujari/IPS

By Priyanka Borpujari
MORIGAON, India, Oct 7 2014 (IPS)

The northeastern Indian state of Assam is no stranger to devastating floods. Located just south of the eastern Himalayas, the lush, 30,000-square-km region comprises the Brahmaputra and Barak river valleys, and is accustomed to annual bouts of rain that swell the mighty rivers and spill over into villages and towns, inundating agricultural lands and washing homes, possessions and livestock away.

Now, the long-term impacts of such natural disasters are proving to be a thorn in the side of a government that is racing against time to meet its commitments under the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a set of poverty reduction targets that will expire at the year’s end.

A woman dries blankets after her home went underwater for five days in one of the villages of the Morigaon district. The woven bamboo sheet beyond the clothesline used to be the walls of her family’s toilet. August rains inundated 141 villages in the district. Credit: Priyanka Borpujari/IPS

Target 7C of the MDGs stipulated that U.N. member states would aim to halve the proportion of people living without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation by 2015.

While tremendous gains have been made towards this ambitious goal, India continues to lag behind, with 60 percent of its 1.2 billion people living without access to basic sanitation.

Diving into the river is an easy solution to a lack of bathrooms for children and men, even though the water has been stagnant for about a month. Skin rashes are the most common ailment caused by contact with unclean water, according to village doctors. Credit: Priyanka Borpujari/IPS

Now, recurring floods and other disasters are putting further strain on the government, as scores of people are annually displaced, and left without safe access to water and sanitation. In 2012 alone, floods displaced 6.9 million people across India.

Currently, Assam is one of the worst hit regions.

Floods in Morigaon have submerged about 45 roads in the district. Most people wade through the water, believing this is quicker than waiting for a rickety boat to transport them across. Credit: Priyanka Borpujari/IPS

Since May this year, several waves of floods have affected more than 700,000 people across 23 of the state’s 27 districts, claiming the lives of 68 people.

In places where roads have collapsed, the government has erected bamboo bridges. When the government is absent, locals do this work themselves. This man and child travel from one village to another on a boat, and travel by foot over the bridges. Credit: Priyanka Borpujari/IPS

Heavy rainfall during one week of August devastated the Morigaon and Dhemaji districts, and the river island of Majuli. A sudden downpour that lasted two days in early September in parts of Assam and the neighbouring state of Meghalaya claimed 44 and 55 lives respectively.

Men transporting milk from Dhemaji to Dibrugarh district across the Brahmaputra River wash their utensils in the river. The lack of hygiene and proper sanitation facilities is a severe concern in flood-affected areas. Credit: Priyanka Borpujari/IPS

The Indian federal government last week announced its intention to distribute some 112 million dollars in aid to the affected population.

In Dhemaji district, closer to the northeastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, people use a rope boat in the absence of a road. Credit: Priyanka Borpujari/IPS

One of the primary concerns for officials has been the sanitation situation in the aftermath of the floods, with families forced to rig up makeshift sanitary facilities, and women and children in particular made vulnerable by a lack of water and proper toilets.

Women from the Mishing community in Dhemaji district are shocked by the siltation caused by the floods. Their homes on stilts – known as chaang ghor – are built on a raised platform. But the sands have submerged the homes in this village by two feet. Credit: Priyanka Borpujari/IPS

Directly following the floods, the ministry of drinking water and sanitation advised the public health and engineering department of the Assam government to “urgently” make provision for such disasters, particularly ensuring safe water for residents in remote rural areas.

Women from Rekhasapori village in Dhemaji district walk on the hot sand towards a health camp set up by Save The Children. Most people complain of rashes, and acidity from acute hunger. Credit: Priyanka Borpujari/IPS

Among other suggestions, the ministry recommended the “hiring of water tankers for emergency water supply to affected sites […], procuring of sodium hypochlorite, halogen tablets and bleaching powder for proper disinfection [and] hiring of sufficient vehicles fitted with water treatment plants to provide onsite safe drinking water.”

Mohini Pait delivered her daughter on the day after floods in the Rekhasapori village of Assam state washed her house away. She and her baby are currently living in one of many relief camps that dot the roads in flood-affected areas throughout Assam. Credit: Priyanka Borpujari/IPS

In Morigaon and Dhemaji, families are slowly trying to pick up the pieces of their lives, but experts say unless proper disaster management measures are put in place, the poorest will suffer and floods will continue to erode India’s progress towards the MDGs.

Edited by Kanya D’Almeida

Those displaced by a military offensive in northern Pakistan spend hours on the roadside in 45-degree heat. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai

By Ashfaq Yusufzai
PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Jun 23 2014 (IPS)

Shaukat Ali, a shopkeeper originally hailing from Miramshah in the Northern Waziristan Agency of Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), looks exhausted as he sits outside a makeshift shelter with his family of 10.

They traveled for a whole day to reach this tiny house outside of Peshawar, capital of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province that borders Afghanistan, and now count themselves among the thousands of civilian refugees fleeing a full-scale military offensive aimed at rooting out terrorist groups from Pakistan’s mountainous regions.

He tells IPS that the situation back in Waziristan, a Taliban stronghold, is “pathetic”, as scores of families abandon their homes and all their possessions to escape the Pakistan army’s airstrikes, which have resulted in food shortages and widespread panic since they began in earnest on Jun. 15.

“We traveled on foot for five hours just to hire a vehicle that would bring us to Peshawar, and from there we traveled even further to reach Bannu [an ancient city in KP],” the distraught man continued.

“Those who have been uprooted by the conflict have no choice but to live in congested conditions." -- Dr. Fayaz Ali, a public health expert in Bannu
“Three of my five sons developed temperatures along the way and we don’t have money to consult doctors or purchase medicines,” Ali said.

It is likely that all the other 100,000 displaced people now living in 65,000 government-sponsored tents in KP are experiencing similar hardships, with several people clamouring to share their own stories of escape.

Some say they left Waziristan on tractor-trolleys with nothing but the clothes on their backs; others loaded small bundles onto donkey-driven carts but left behind all but the most basic items for fear of overburdening the beasts.

Many left in such a hurry they were separated from their family members.

Zainab Khatoon, a horsewoman from Waziristan, arrived in Bannu with two of her children but has no idea of the whereabouts of her husband and elder son.

“As soon as the government-imposed curfew was relaxed, we left for Bannu,” the 42-year-old woman recounted to IPS. “My husband and son stayed behind to collect rations like biscuits, rice, tea and oil from our local shop. Three days have passed and they have still not arrived,” she lamented.

Several others told IPS they too have lost loved ones in the chaos.

“We are extremely concerned about people’s missing relatives,” Jawad Ahmed, a camp official, confided to IPS, adding that many of those who arrive are afraid to register their presence with officials for fear of violating the Taliban’s ban on seeking government assistance.

By Sunday, the total number of displaced persons had reached 394,000, with many refugees thought to have crossed the border into neighbouring Afghanistan due to a lack of “electricity, water, food and medical supplies” in KP, Muhammad Rahim, an official with the National Disaster Management Authority, told IPS.

Besides Bannu, the most popular destinations in KP appear to be Lakki Marwat, Tank, Karak and Hangu.

“KP has so far received over 7,000 families, or close to 100,000 people,” an official named Sajjid Khan told IPS, adding that some families are making their way towards the southern cities of Lahore and Karachi.

In anticipation of an extended military campaign, the government has allocated one billion dollars to relief for the displaced population, which will go towards erecting shelters, toilets and possibly even schools for the youth.

Shoaib Sultan, a political analyst at the University of Peshawar, believes the operation is unlikely to end in the immediate future and people are destined to witness hard times.

“The scorching heat, with a temperature of 45 degrees Celsius, has multiplied the woes of the people, many of whom are simply taking shelter under trees on roadsides,” he told IPS.

Codenamed Zarb-e-Asb (meaning the sword of Prophet Muhammad strikes), the army operation is in part a response to the insurgent attack on Karachi international airport earlier this month, which killed 18 people.

While many welcome the government’s hard-line approach to persistent terrorism, it appears that impoverished residents are bearing the brunt of attacks, as they have for nearly a decade.

Some politicians, like Imran Khan of the Pakistan Tehreek-e Insaf (Pakistan Movement for Justice), have called on the government to suspend the operation until residents can be safely evacuated.

Housing system pushed to its limits

Since 2005, the military has made sporadic efforts to wipe out insurgents from the border regions, where the mountainous terrain provided a convenient base for Taliban members fleeing U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

Caught between the army and the militants, civilians were forced to leave the tribal regions altogether.

A mass exodus that has continued more or less uninterrupted for nearly nine years has already seen 2.1 million people flee their homes in FATA, only to descend on the neighbouring province of KP, where officials have struggled to meet their needs.

Many have lived in wretched conditions for years, with little access to food, water and proper sanitation, in mud huts or camps.

Dr. Fayaz Ali, a public health expert, is worried about what the latest refugee wave means for Pakistan’s ability to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – a set of poverty reduction targets agreed upon by the United Nations, which includes lessening the number of slum-dwellers by 100 million by 2015.

“Those who have been uprooted by the conflict have no choice but to live in congested conditions,” Ali told IPS.

Prior to the latest influx of refugees, Bannu was playing host to 50,000 displaced families.

Estate dealers here say the demand for houses was already skyrocketing, as people jostled for the few available residential units, while those unable to afford formal housing occupied mud huts.

Officials say there is literally no room to house the incoming refugees, who are for the time being occupying government schools in order to minimise the spread of diseases in overcrowded camps.

“We are treating the displaced people for food- and water-borne ailments,” said Rehmat Shar, a Bannu-based doctor.

“We have seen about 650 patients, which included 200 women and 300 children. Most of the patients required rehydration due to the unrelenting heat,” Shah, who works in the district headquarters hospital, informed IPS.

“The living conditions are miserable,” added Wahidullah Khan, a former resident of the Mir Ali town in North Waziristan who rushed his family of eight to Bannu as soon as the army launched its operation.

“We live in a small house made of mud and stones, which lacks electricity,” Ali said. “And my children have to walk long distances to collect water.”

He and his wife say they left everything behind when they escaped and are now figuring out how to start their lives from scratch.

(END)

By Malini Shankar
BANGALORE, India, Dec 26 2012 (IPS)

Of the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) -development targets agreed upon by the international community, whose 2015 deadline is approaching fast – MDG 7 has proven a particular challenge, especially for sprawling, populous countries like India.

With the ambitious aim of improving both natural ecosystems and human environments, MDG 7 comprises numerous targets, from halving the percentage of the world’s population without access to safe drinking water and sanitation, to protecting global fish stocks by preventing illegal fishing and overfishing.

Having pledged millions of euros to helping developing countries achieve the MDGs, the European Union has kept a sharp eye on India, whose regulations and efforts regarding MDG 7 have been inadequate, experts say.

China and India combined are still home to 216 million people without access to clean water and sanitation.
Meanwhile unsustainable fishing practices carry on unchecked. The Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute’s latest census counted 243,939 trawlers, despite an official EU ban on these fishing vessels in shallow waters off the coast.

The EU has also placed a full ban on fishing in protected areas like the Gulf of Mannar Marine National Park, but commercial fishers take advantage of loopholes in the law to invade these reserves.