At the back of the classrooms women and children from 127 families have somehow established themselves. There are no mattresses, no blankets, too few bathrooms, it stinks. Even in times of greatest trouble the “purdah” is practised which does not allow women to be seen in public. Their husbands live either with host families or in “hujras”, the traditional Pashtun guest houses, which are open to every traveller - now they are overcrowded. Some even have to stay at the nearby cemetery.
"My daughter died eight days after the flood came," says Mufidanaz. She does not cry, she does not complain. She just notes, like if she would be far away - in a state of shock. The girl was suffering from diarrhoea and could not be treated on-site. When Mufidanaz arrived with the one and a half year old girl at the hospital in the provincial capital Peshawar, it was too late. The child's father is a soldier and posted in Siachen - at the border to China. He does not even know that he has lost his house and yard and one of his five children. "We have no telephone line to him," says his wife.
Official figures claim, that the flood that has set a fifth of Pakistan's under water during the past weeks, had called for about 1,500 deaths. But this seems questionable. "About 35 percent of the population is missing here in the district Akbarpura," says Idrees Kamal of "Citizens Rights and Sustainable Development (CRSD). The human rights organisation is one of many small NGOs that have allied under the name "Network for Humanitarian Assistance" to help.
They serve about 2,000 people from seven villages who lost everything. A boy from the village Jabadawozai reported that he tried to hold his mother when the flood wave came, but the water was stronger. "We distribute cooked meals every day," says Idrees Kamal. They also try to organize medical aid, but there are far too few doctors for all the people who suffer from diarrhoea and skin diseases. One woman is said to have drunk out of ignorance a tincture for skin rash and died of it.
"Each day anew, we have to organize money to make ends meet," says Idrees Kamal. Some 25,000 rupees per day are needed to buy rice and lentils. For buying vegetables and meat it’s rarely enough. "The prices of vegetables have risen exorbitantly," said Ruhi Khan, a lawyer who helps the "Noor Educational Trust” in Nowshera. "Two weeks ago one kilogram of tomatoes cost only 60 rupees, now they are 120" But the volunteers agree, that for the refugees the worst is still to come. Only in the outskirts of the villages, the full extent of the disaster is visible. Over the once fertile fields of corn and wheat, mud has spread a deadly carpet under which nothing grows anymore. Some fruit trees still carry ripe pears waiting for the harvest, but the fields are no longer accessible - people and vehicles would sink immediately in the thick mud.
Especially the poor who had their homes near the river, have been hit by the flood. Their modest mud homes were crushed by the weight of the water like card-houses. In the mud often only a door frame, the bruised frame of a traditional bed (Charpoi) or a copper kettle remindes of the fact that once people lived here. "I was sleeping when the flood came at 3 o’clock at night," reports the widow Asia Farman. "Neighbours informed us, I did not even have enough time to pack my things. I awoke my five children and we ran away. Nothing is left to us, our only buffalo died of an infection."
"It will take about one month until everything is dry," says Idrees Kamal. "And then the problems will only start." The complete loss of the harvest this year will make the region depending on food donations for a longer period. And it is unclear how long it will take until the muddy fields will be fertile again. "We're heading towards a food crisis here," says Kamal. Thus, the reconstruction of the destroyed houses is even one of the easier tasks. "It costs about 50,000 rupees to re-build a mud house," says Ehsanullah, a young teacher at the boys’ school of Takhar.
In this situation, no one wants to talk about politics. Pakistan's newspapers are full of negative articles about the failure of the government in Islamabad and about President Zardari, who continued his tour through Europe while his country drowned in a deluge. But here in the Nowshera, volunteers remain diffident. "We do not know what the government is doing," says Idrees Kamal. The Commissioner of Peshawar, a senior civil servant, had turned up three days ago with an entourage of media, promised aid and then left.
"One has to consider that the administration is also affected by the floods," says Kamal helpless. "We have not seen such a flood for 70 years." He and his team rather concentrate on helping to organize the work. But there remain - as always in Pakistan - many questions. Journalists in Islamabad complain about pressure by the army and the ISI to report as critical as possible on the role of government. The weaker the civil government is, the better the military can present itself as the only functioning institution.
Thus, liberal circles remind them that Pakistan has just returned to democracy in 2008 and that it takes time to build democratic institutions. Above all, the weaknesses of a feudal administrative system become obvious, where things have been based on clientele relationships for times immemorial. The biggest challenge for many refugees will be to get back their land after the water has retreated. Since there are no deeds of ownership or registration, the owners rely on convincing the local Patwari, a traditional sub-official, that their land really belongs to them. And that takes money. "In order to reduce corruption, now teachers were asked to take over the job of the Patwari," says Idrees Kamal.
But an emergency is hardly the appropriate time for an administrative reform. "We have to pay a very high price for the bad governance," writes development expert Tasneem Siddqui from Karachi in an article. "The biggest problems are incompetence, inefficiency, corruption and lack of decision making." Deficits that can’t be eliminated from one day to other. Nor the fact that only just little more than one percent of Pakistanis pay taxes at all – the main reason for the permanent underfunding of the government.
Therefore, funds like the one just approved by the World Bank over 900 million dollars for the flood victims will be subject to conditions, like the money from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) provided earlier to tackle the economic crisis. Opposition leader Nawaz Sharif suggested to convene a national commission for the flood to ensure that the funds are used properly - and to reassure the donor countries.
It will take many further steps. But so much is clear: Pakistan cannot cope with the crisis on its own. The challenge is to help in a way that can not be misused by extremists, who are well equipped with funds from Saudi Arabia and other countries and who are just waiting for an opportunity to denounce the government as a puppet of the West.
This text first appeared in a slightly amended version in: Rheinischer Merkur No. 33, 19/08/2010
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Britta Petersen is Country Director of the Heinrich Böll Stiftung in Lahore
The Heinrich Böll Stiftung currently supports the project in the province Khyber Pakhtunkhwa at the border to Afghanistan, conducted by a consortium of NGOs led by the “Noor Education” Trust in Peshawar.
Among the NGOs are longstanding partners of the Foundation as Rukhshanda Naz (formerly Aurat Foundation). Also participating: "Citizen Rights and Sustainable Development (CRSD)", "Sea Forum" and "Shajar Development Foundation”.
Additionally, the Foundation will support a similar project of Takhleeq Foundation in the districts Ghotki and Shikarpur in Sindh. Further donations are urgently needed.
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