PAKISTAN: Sindh 2011 flood victims brace for monsoon
Thousands of people who were affected by the floods still do not have adequate shelter
KARACHI, 11 June 2012 (IRIN) - Thousands of people who lost their homes in the 2011 floods in Sindh Province, southern Pakistan, are worried how the July-September monsoon will pan out, according to local residents.
“I am currently living in a shack made of wood pieces, straw and plastic. How will my elderly parents and three small children survive these conditions when the rains come? We are already struggling to survive the heat,” Ghazi Dinoo told IRIN from Badin, one of the worst affected districts.
The 2011 floods affected some 5.8 million people in all 23 districts of Sindh, according to official figures, and over 200,000 people still do not have adequate shelter, according to the International Organization for Migration (
IOM), which is planning to increase from 10,500 to 30,000 the number of one-room shelters (ORS) it is providing to vulnerable families.
“The existing ORS programme… will reach some 73,500 people by May 2013. The expanded programme, if funded, will reach some 210,000 people,” the IOM said in a
statement on 29 May.
Manuel Marquez Pereira, ORS programme officer for IOM, told IRIN: “The idea is to improve the resilience of communities by increasing technical quality input, the incorporation of more disaster risk reduction components, monitoring to ensure compliance, and safer shelters with minimum external input to catalyze self-recovery.”
He explained that ORS were basically structures similar to what people had before the floods. Made of local materials such as bamboo and sun-dried bricks, the rooms measure 22-25 square metres and are designed to provide better shelter and security, he said.
“There are still a large number of flood-affected people all across Sindh,” Anwar Kazmi, spokesman for the charitable Edhi Foundation, told IRIN, adding that the Foundation had distributed seed and fertilizer, but was also encouraging people to “help themselves” rather than wait for aid.
“I have accepted charity from organizations, though I dislike doing so. Today we are living in a small mud house with a single room and verandah I built myself. We have re-planted some crops, and I hope we can in time rebuild the four-room house we had before, so there is more room and privacy for my extended family of 10,” said Alim Chandio, whose parents and unmarried sisters also live with him.
“I just hope there is no new flooding this year to destroy our dreams,” he told IRIN from Zarbelo village in Khairpur District.
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