05/16/09
Prelude to a long fight
dawn.com.pk, Nosheen Abbas, Saturday, 16 May, 2009
There is a melee and a lot of shouting. Every now and then I see many little girls and boys being shoved out of the crowd. They struggle to hold on some packets as stumble out, indicating it is some kind of distribution point. Once stable on their feet, most scatter off but a few are seen trying to hide the small packets of biscuits and milk that they got under their clothes — a smart move to try a second helping.
Welcome to the internally displaced persons camp that has sprouted in Sector G-7 of Islamabad.
The camp has been set up on a plot that was formerly a dumping site. In fact, these IDPs are living on top of a dumpster with a gutter running over the camp. There must have been about 40 tents, each has a set of horrific story of pain and loss — the kind of loss that some would find unimaginable.
Follow up:
As I moved through the terrain of the camp I tried to speak to children, especially orphans. I was introduced to two girls from Swat – Rozeena,10, and Kulsoom, 13 — sitting on either side of their mother in a tent that accommodates nine members of two families, perhaps, complete strangers to each other, sleeping in one tent on a jute mat. Perched on their haunches still smiling and greeting me with warmth, a little stranger came and sat beside me and began fanning us so that everyone got some air as the sun beat down on us.
Rozeena began her families’ painful story: Her father was killed seven days ago when he was out to get vegetables. Unluckily he got caught in the cross fire between the Taliban and military personnel. With the growing threat of Talibanisation like many families, she moved to Islamabad with her widowed mother and two siblings, not getting enough time to even mourn their fathers’ death. They face a crisis within a crisis figuring how to survive from one day to the next. ‘We wake up every morning; we can’t even wash our faces; there is no water, but I set off trying to find something to eat for breakfast,’ says Rozeena.
Kulsoom, looking ill, intercepted: ‘I have a breathing problem and we don’t even have a proper latrines here’. They live in a wretchedly unhygienic area. No access to clean drinking water, they wear soiled, not old clothes. There’s dust in the air and the heat is unrelenting. Used to the clear and cool air of Swat, they not only are having to adapt to the new weather, but a host of illnesses borne out of their filthy surrounding areas. Bugs of all types including flies are roaming in a filth-infested area right in the midst of the camp. Within ten minutes of meeting them I already have two huge mosquito bites. ‘You cannot imagine how many mosquitoes are in the tent at night,’ she tells me with eyes wide open, as I scratch my own arm. ‘The children are developing strange skin problems. It’s because of this gutter that’s running along the camp,’ tells an NGO volunteer. The camp has already seen a delivery, an asthmatic patient, a man who suffered of heart attack, a child who has recently been diagnosed with blood cancer and a woman who suffered post-natal bleeding after she gave birth to her child in the camp without a doctor.
President Asif Ali Zardari’s sister MNA Faryal Talpur has donated these tents to the IDPs, but they are substandard and hardly worth living in. It’s too difficult to justify why our own states fat cats can’t provide decent living areas for victims of this man-made disaster — a catastrophe the outcome and consequences of which were predicted at least a year before the threat reached our doorsteps.
‘Our schools were blown away after we returned to our home, then, because of the Mujahideen we had to leave our home too, now we are here in Islamabad. We want to be able to study and live like humans,’ Rozeena says. Her mother Hameeda says ‘I just want to educate my girls. They are so bright and I am also at the risk of losing my older daughter if she doesn’t get medicine on time,’ pleads their mother.
Having lost everything they spoke about their house with nostalgia. ‘It was a mud house; it was on rent but clean and we had our own rooms,’ said Rozeena.
Their lives have shattered, they sit in a camp for those who have suffered at the hands of the Taliban. They are at a loss of words for a war they cannot possibly understand. ‘I don’t know why they are fighting. They say it is for Islam. But I still don’t understand it,’ says Rozeena.
Many families’ life like Rozeena’s have been vitiated by militants – listening to their stories gives a peak into the lives of millions of people who have become victims of the man-made catastrophe.
But despite their situation Rozeena smiles widely and her eyes light up as she tells me what she wants to become: ‘I want to be a doctor’. Kulsoom is also smiling despite her breathing problems, and in a light voice says that she wants to become a teacher. Their strength is almost panglossian. For little girls to lose their father, their home and their lives in a city where they grew up is a trauma too large to fathom. And to see them smile and yet still say that they have hope in the future is courage that’s rarely seen. It seems that their patience begins where ours ends. These girls who have displayed incredible tolerance for a situation created by our own state’s negligence would make anyone realize that it is spirit like theirs that needs only a nudge.
Please contribute to changing the lives of millions of people who have been affected the worst in this crisis, by contributing to the closest and most reliable charity near you.
nosheenabbas@gmail.com
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