Red Crescent offers hope and healing to Pakistan flood victims

By Mubashir Fida, International Federation Information Officer in Turbat, Baluchistan
A month has gone by since cyclone Yemyin struck southwest Pakistan, leaving a trail of misery and destruction in its wake. The storm was followed by heavy rains and floods, which have affected more than 2.5 million people and continue to threaten new villages. Amid the intense heat and humidity, the threat of disease is growing and many people are struggling to survive.
"The situation out there is worsening, as people are in living poor hygienic conditions and are falling sick," says Dr. Zulekha, who is working with one of the Pakistan Red Crescent's mobile health teams in Baluchistan.

"A lot of people with skin infections visit us daily, and it's because of the dirty water they are using," she adds. Dehydration, sun stroke and snake bites are also being reported.
Walking along the streets of Koshkalat, it's easy to spot mosquitoes hovering over ponds of stagnant water. As the standing flood waters linger, the risk of a malaria outbreak grows each day.

In response to these threats, staff and volunteers from the Pakistan Red Crescent and the International Federation are working around the clock to provide urgently-needed help.

Dire straits

In the village of Nokalat, 32-year-old Salma Aslam, lives with her family of eight. Her husband works as a wage laborer and earns a meager 150 rupees ($2.50 USD) per day, depending on the circumstances.

Salma says the floods are forcing her family into dire straits. "The weather is hot and it's hard to live in a tent… I hope that my family can bear it."

Like hundreds of thousands of other people, Salma watched as everything she owned was washed away by the merciless floods.

Remembering her home she says, "It took me and my husband eight years to build our two room house. It was small, but I had decorated it and had many memories there. We were living happily in it and now it is no more."

Women living in rural areas of Pakistan are hit particularly hard when disasters strike because of the cultural conservatism here.

Being able to bathe, go to the toilet or get medical help become major challenges for women and girls because of local rules and customs, which limit contact between the sexes. Often, it's the women and children who also wind up walking long distances to fetch water when wells and pumps are contaminated or destroyed.

"We had private latrines and bathing facilities in my home, but now everything is gone. I have to wait for hours to go to the toilet in the open because I fear that a man might see me," explains Salma.

This type of situation can also lead to a higher incidence of disease and illness.

Lessons learned
The International Federation and the Pakistan Red Crescent have a significant amount of experience in providing gender-specific relief and care in rural areas of the country. Many similar hygiene, health, water and sanitation issues arose in the aftermath of the October 2005 earthquake in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province.

Lessons learned while responding to that terrible tragedy have enabled the Red Cross Red Crescent to factor these challenges into their floods relief operation, ensuring, for example, that female health professionals are available to see the women and girls.

As a result, Salma was able to take her seven-year-old daughter to a health team run by the Pakistan Red Crescent and the International Federation, where she received treatment for a respiratory tract infection and skin allergies, caused by living near stagnant water.

So far, the Pakistan Red Crescent has provided medical assistance to more than 10,500 men, women and children in both Baluchistan and Sindh. Over the next six months, almost 15 times that number are expected to receive health care as part of the Red Cross and Red Crescent's relief and recovery operation.

Meanwhile, five Emergency Response Units, specialized in logistics, health, water and sanitation are being set up in the affected areas of Baluchistan and Sindh. The Pakistan Red Crescent and the International Federation are also providing separate communal latrines for men and women, as well as kits with hygiene items, such as soap, for around 5,000 families.

The health and water and sanitation teams plan to fix wells in six villages of the Koshkalat and Gokdan areas in order to restore clean drinking water, while the cleaning of wells has already started in the villages of Aliabad and Zargept.

Abdus Salam, a 26-year-old resident of Aliabad village in Koshkalat says he can't wait for the water supply scheme in his village to be up and running again.

"It has been terrible living without water for weeks," he says. "But the Red Crescent is here and they are rehabilitating a well to provide us with clean drinking water, so now we have hope."