Daily Times

Sir: When his crumpled body was finally found after ten days, a sack, with some wheat flour still left inside, was tied to his back with a small rope. He was the father of six children.

A resident of Duwardas village, located in the Ishkoman Valley of District Ghizer, Hassan Baig had fallen in the Qurumbar River on September 19, while trying to move along a “Girari” – a rickety basket hanging to a metallic wire tied on both sides of the gorge — to carry the bag of flour to his family.

He had no transport option, other than the “Girari”, to take the flour home and feed his family; the link road to his village has been cut-off for the last several months, after a Glacial Lake Outburst Flood (GLOF) destroyed the neighbouring Badswat village on July 17, 2018.

Despite of belligerent rhetoric, and chest thumping, the Ghizer district administration, and the government of Gilgit-Baltistan has failed to reconnect the flood affected villages to the rest of the valley by repairing the dirt roads.

Left at the mercy of nature, 44 families of the Badswat village, and residents of the surrounding settlements, are not now faced with the early phase of a harsh winter. The trees have shed their leaves, and the mountain tops are receiving snowfall. Slowly, the snowfall will increase and reach the valleys, making lives of the residents even harder.

For many of the families that have lost their houses, and land, and are forced to live in tents, or with families and friends, in some cases, the harsh winters may even become lethal.

The Aga Khan Agency for Habitat has collaborated with the Pakistan Army to use helicopters for dropping up to six tonnes of edible relief items, good for three months, in the affected villages. But, that is clearly not enough for rehabilitation of the affected families.

Immediate priority, after food and health, should have been the reconstruction of houses, or a few rooms, at least, to shelter the displaced households. So far, the government of Gilgit-Baltistan has failed to provide any monetary compensation to the locals for construction of the damaged and destroyed houses. The flood affected people had also lost their crops and orchards, along with their houses.

Such is the apathetic attitude of the regional government that three months on, the relevant ministers, and the Chief Minister, have yet to visit the area to take stock of the locals’ issues. After severe criticism from the local media, two days back the region’s Chief Secretary visited the disaster affected region for the very first time, and distributed a few bags of relief items, just enough for photography and publicity. He promised the locals that compensation for reconstruction of houses will be ‘distributed within a month’.

Even if the region’s top bureaucrat is taken for his words, by the time the money reaches the locals, the harsh winters would have set in, making construction of houses impossible. It can easily be deduced that the locals will not be able to build their houses until April 2019, when the winter comes to an end.

Why is the regional government indifferent to the plight of the people of upper Ishkoman, is a question being asked by many on social media.

Some say it is because none of the ministers has any political mileage to gain from being active, as Ishkoman is not their constituency. Others believe that being members of a small ethnic minority, the people of Upper Ishkoman have fallen prey to a system where race, language, sect, and political mileage, are determinants of the pace of action.

Whatever the cause may be, the people of Duwardas, Badswat and Bilhanz have been ignored by the government, and the district administration and their issues have not been addressed compassionately. The bureaucrats and politicians need to understand that the winters can prove to be lethal for the locals. They need to act fast to compensate for their apathy, and save the lives of the displaced families, if they believe in humanity.

NOOR PAMIRI

Brooklyn, USA

Published in Daily Times, October 5^th 2018.