BANGLADESH: Plight of cyclone missing continues

Photo: David Swanson/IRIN

Faridabegum Musulli, 35, lost her husband when Cyclone Sidr struck southwestern Bangladesh on 15 November 2007

KHEKUANI, 2 January 2008 (IRIN) - Almost a month and a half after Cyclone Sidr devastated large parts of southwestern Bangladesh, Faridabegum Musulli is still waiting for her husband to return.

“We haven’t heard anything,” the 35-year-old mother-of-four said outside her home in Khekuani, a largely agricultural community of 3,500 in Bangladesh’s cyclone-affected Barguna District.

“People searched the area for days and found nothing,” she said.

Two days before the cyclone struck, her husband, Forkun, and eight of his friends had travelled to Sonar Char, a river island along the coast of southern Patuakhali District to work as day labourers, only to have the boat they were travelling in swept out to sea by a massive tidal surge on 15 November.

Over 3,000 people were killed and millions more rendered homeless by the category four storm – now described as the most powerful cyclone to strike the impoverished river-delta nation in just over 15 years.

But while much has been reported about Sidr’s devastation, and its impact on some nine million people, little has been said of the missing - or of their families now struggling to pick up the pieces of their lives.

“Theirs’ is an untold story,” one aid worker on the ground in Barisal city, a major focal point for the ongoing relief operation, told IRIN.

“And I’m afraid their pain will continue for some time,” he added.

Photo: David Swanson/IRIN

Abdur Rashid lost their 3 year old son when Cyclone Sidr slammed into the country on 15 November 2007. More than one month after the disaster, close to 900 people remain missing

Nearly 900 missing

According to the Bangladesh Red Crescent Society, there are 871 people still missing, the vast majority of whom are women and children.

“The sea took my baby,” one young mother said, recalling in vivid detail how she clung to a tree holding her daughter’s shirt in her mouth like a mother lioness – only to have her ripped away within seconds.

“I can’t find her anywhere,” she lamented.

Mahmuda and Jesmin, both 22, lost their children while seeking shelter behind the embankment of a neighbouring polder.

“It happened so quickly. I don’t know if my baby is dead or alive,” Jesmin said.

Scores of parents lost their children in their efforts to save them, only to find them drowned in local paddy fields, their tiny crushed bodies badly mangled and broken. Some were carried as much as 10km away by the surging waters which at times went above five metres, while others were later found dangling from tree tops - dead.

“I lost my three-year-old son,” Abdur Rashid, a 50-year-old day labourer, told IRIN outside his home village of Boro Bighai, southwestern Bangladesh. “They haven’t found him yet, but I suspect they won’t," he said.

Database of missing persons

Photo: David Swanson/IRIN

Mahmuda and Jesmin, both 22, lost their children to Cyclone Sidr

In rural cyclone-affected areas, ensuring that this information is shared is not easy, and the Bangladesh Red Crescent is working to establish a database of missing persons in order to link them up with their loved ones.

“We are working on it and currently have a tracing programme in place, supported by the ICRC [International Committee of the Red Cross],” Mohammed Shafiul Alam, secretary-general of the Bangladesh Red Crescent Society, told IRIN in Dhaka, the Bangladeshi capital, drawing on the efforts of some 3,000-4,000 trained Red Crescent volunteers manually collecting information on the ground.

“By collecting the names and addresses of those missing, we are doing our best to help,” Alam said.

But with each passing day that hope is fading, with many ultimately questioning their future survival.

As tears fill Faridabegum's eyes, villagers gather around as she recalls the man she loved; the same man that wanted nothing more than to provide food for his impoverished family and earned less than US$1 a day.

“If God had taken me, it would have been better. Who will take care of me and my family now? Who will love me like my husband did?” she cried.

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