Pakistani flood victims celebrate end of Ramadan (Feature)

By Nadeem Sarwar Sep 11, 2010, 10:10 GMT

Charsadda, Pakistan - Millions of Pakistan's flood victims on Saturday celebrated Eid-al-Fitr, the end of the holy month of Ramadan, at temporary shelters in relief camps or in the open, many with little food or water.

The worst floods in the country's history have swamped one-fifth of the country, killed over 1,700 and left more than 2 million homeless, according to the United Nations.

The deluge has also destroyed millions of hectares of crops. Eight million people rely on food supplied by government or aid agencies.

Pakistan has been sluggish in providing relief to the flood survivors, who have criticised the government as they celebrated Eid-al-Fitr at the relief camps across country. Aid from the world community has also been very slow.

'My house has been destroyed and with that all I had. My three daughters are wearing old clothes at Eid. I had a few hundred rupees left with me that I spent to buy new shoes for my daughters,' Zahir Ahmad said.

He stood outside a tent at the Khandar relief camp in Charsadda, a district in the north-western province of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. 'We have got nothing from the government. No one has come here to help us,' Ahmad said.

Many of the flood victims were not interested in celebrating the most important festival in the Islamic calendar.

'What sort of Eid we can celebrate here in these tents?' said Gul Mohammad. 'Eid is for them who have a home. We have no house, no clothes. We cannot visit any relative's house and no relative can visit us. There is no Eid for us.'

The government urged citizens to avoid festivities at Eid and celebrate it with simplicity. Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and opposition leader Nawaz Sharif visited some relief camps and met the affected people.

'This year's Eid festival is being celebrated on such a moment of history, when a large part of country is under the devastation caused by pre-Ramadan floods,' Gilani said. 'Millions of fellow countrymen are homeless and facing severe difficulties.'

He said he hoped that the country would deal with the problems posed by the disaster. 'No doubt, brave nations face the challenges with courage and mettle,' Gilani said.

At the Governor's House in Karachi, the capital of the southern province of Sindh and financial hub of the country, more than a dozen popular singers and TV artists spent hours with flood survivors and distributed gifts. Actresses decorated the palms of women with henna.

'We are celebrating with simplicity but we are trying to converge it with the happiness of flood victims by giving them smiles,' said Sindh Governor Ishratul Ibad Khan.

But those few symbolic acts were limited and provided little respite for millions of helpless people.

Around 125 kilometers south-east of Karachi, dozens of half-naked children sat on graves in the Makli Hill burial ground, with no hint it was a Eid. Their parents were too busy fetching water from a tanker that had arrived after two days, the refugees were running out of water.

Hundreds of the families occupied the graveyard, with ornate tombs of hundreds of Muslim saints dating from the 14th century, when the surging waters from the River Indus flooded areas in Thatta district.

Few families have been given tents by the government or the UN aid organizations. Most of them stay in the open, in the scorching heat or monsoon rains. At night, they struggle to protect the children from poisonous snakes and scorpions.

'We have been here for last two weeks and still we are sitting in the open. When the sky is clear, the heat is unbearable during day time. When there is rain, we get wet and cannot find a place to sleep,' Javed Iqbal said.

'Forget new clothes and some food for our children; we are dying to get water here on the day of Eid,' he added. 'There is no Eid day for us, for us every day is a matter of death. We are just trying to keep ourselves alive.'