“I walked from Gul Bela, a village nearby, to come here. I know that this distribution being held right now by Medecins Sans Frontieres is for the community of Jala Bela. I heard people saying in a health center in my village that MSF has been supporting it since displaced people started arriving from the conflict affected areas. These women and I haven’t registered our names but we are still hoping to get something, because our homes are completely destroyed, our men are sick from drinking bad water." Farida continues, "the floods have left us with nothing.”
The overcast morning sky in Nazirabad, Peshawar, where MSF is conducting another round of relief items distribution, hints that more rainfall is probably on the way. Farida’s five year old boy tugs at her long dress impatiently. “He wants to know why we can’t go home. I don’t know what to say, so I just tell him that we’re going somewhere new,” she explains.
The floods that overwhelmed Pakistan more than two weeks ago have forced people to leave their homes with such urgency that they were able to salvage very little. Some have even lost members of their family. “The water came into our home at night and we had to swim out as quickly as possible. I carried my baby boy on my shoulders. This flood has taken everything away from me, including one of my girls. She breathed in too much water and couldn’t make it,” says Nizam Ali. He hoists the tent, kitchen set and hygiene material above his shoulders. The packages are tailored to fit a variety of needs: a typical MSF relief kit could include clothes, soap, toothbrush, towels, buckets, a jerry can, plastic sheeting, cotton mattresses as well as water purification tablets. To date, MSF has distributed kits to more than 8,000 families in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Baluchistan provinces.
This disaster has left millions without safe water, food, shelter or medicine. Despite the growing risk of diarrhoeal diseases like cholera, help is still not getting to the people who need it. Clean drinking water has been particularly slow to arrive. International aid agencies have been working hard to these ends, and local organisations and affected communities are providing assistance to those among them in the greatest need. Much more, however, needs to be done.
Even two weeks after the onset of the heavy and violent rainfall, MSF teams working in Pakistan still face a variety of logistical challenges. In Swat, water has demolished 16 bridges leaving MSF teams on either side of the valley, forcing them to find innovative ways of sending supplies via boats and even horses. In Baluchistan, teams from the provincial capital Quetta, are struggling to supply the MSF mobile clinics with fuel and medical materials they need to operate.
Boys fill up their canteens at a water distribution point in Swat Valley, Pakistan. Photo by Jean Marc Jacobs, MSF.
As for kit distributions, finding a safe and secure site is a major challenge for MSF teams. “We could not find a single space that was not ravaged by water in Jala Bela, so we were unable to conduct the distribution for the people in their own village,” explains assistant project coordinator Waqar Ahmad. “This is the third distribution we are holding in the courtyard of this house in Nazirabad for people from nearby villages like Agra. This man, the owner of the house, has generously allowed us to use his private space to help people from nearby villages. We are doing our best to help people, but above all they are helping each other.”
For the relief goods to reach the people who need it most, community involvement is key. Meetings with elders and imams help in identifying the most vulnerable families and the most pressing needs. The site and time of distributions are broadcasted from mosque minarets and through megaphones to ensure that people know where to go.
“Each distribution gets a little more organized; people have their tokens ready and stand patiently in line until their number is called. Our aim here today is to distribute to 585 families, but Inshallah we will surpass our target, and even include unregistered people like these women of Gul Bela. We have enough kits.” continues Waqar.
Two hours into the distribution, Farida is still standing patiently in line. For the people in Pakistan today, patience is not just a virtue; it is vital if they are to recover from what they've endured. “There is good water and bad water” explains Farida, “the good water is the kind we need today, the kind that does not make us sick. The bad water took everything away from us. I’m not going back emptyhanded, even if I have to wait here the whole day."
In addition to the scale up of medical activities, MSF teams continue to focus on providing affected families with basic items and safe drinking water in order to help them attain a minimal standard of living conditions and prevent the spread of diseases.
Since 1988, MSF has been providing medical assistance to Pakistani nationals and Afghan refugees suffering from the effects of armed conflicts, poor access to health care and natural disasters in KPK, FATA, Balochistan and Kashmir.
MSF does not accept funding from any government for its work in Pakistan and chooses to rely solely on private donations.