Hundreds of villages have been flooded across Pakistan and are now only accessible by boat. Washington Post reporters were granted rare media access to several submerged villages within the Dadu district, where waters stretch to the horizon in every direction. The only evidence of the vast devastation below the surface are occasional cracks in a roof, minarets of mosques, power lines, treetops and traffic signals half-obscured by the swampy waters. About a third of Pakistan is under water according to some analyzes of satellite images. The floods, caused by a combination of heavy monsoon rains and unusually high melting of glaciers, are the worst to hit the country in recorded history, Pakistani officials say. Over 33 million people have been affected and nearly 1,400 people have lost their lives. Almost a third of the dead are children. Every day, dozens of boats pass by Raza Mohammad shelter of tree branches and reeds raised on a narrow retaining wall that offered him a ride to higher ground, but each time he pushes them away. Even in the midst of this massive destruction, he refuses to leave. Leaving now would mean leaving behind his livestock – what’s left of value after his village was flooded – and he doesn’t trust the government to take care of him and his family on dry land. “To be honest I don’t want to stay here, but I can’t go without my animals. I wouldn’t be without anything,” he said. Like many in rural areas of Sindh province, Mohammad and his family lived on about four dollars a day. After the flood, he can’t work. Without his animals, he would not be able to support his wife and three children, he said. “We never thought the waters would get this high, otherwise we would have left earlier and taken our animals with us,” he said. A retaining wall had been built by the Pakistani government to protect the area after the last massive flood in 2010. Mohammed and his neighbors believed the wall would hold. But it suddenly exploded in the middle of the night. Within hours, what was a foot of rain turned into a torrent of water. By morning, almost the entire village had disappeared, he said. US steps up flood aid in Pakistan with military airlift “People in these areas are used to floods,” said Pakistani army Lt. Col. Ejaz Karin, who is overseeing rescue and relief efforts in Dadu district. But Karin said he doesn’t think the families who refuse to be rescued understand it could take weeks or months to drain the waters. If thousands continue to stay in flooded villages, Karin said it would create “a food emergency” and health crisis, further stretching relief efforts and causing a sudden spike in deaths. Food distribution in these flooded villages is periodic and largely organized by private individuals. Sometimes, boats arrive daily. At other times, three days can go by without deliveries, residents say. The rations families receive consist of flour, rice, tea and sugar. Pakistan’s largest lake bursts its banks, threatening further flooding Another farmer sheltering in the muddy embankment, Miril Solengi, said he was grateful for the food deliveries but was running out of feed and could not afford to buy more. “If we can’t feed our buffaloes,” he paused. “I don’t know what we will do. Our lives depend on these animals. All we can do is wait for the waters to recede.” In the village of Solengi, flood waters are 15 feet high. And at the current rate, they’re receding about two to three inches a day. “We have already warned them, please leave your homes and go to safety, but they are refusing,” Sona Khan Chandio, deputy commissioner of Khaipur Nathanshah, said in an interview. He said the government had sent health teams to visit families remaining in the flood zone, but the teams had not been able to reach everyone. “We’re doing our best,” he said, adding that those who refuse to be rescued have a responsibility to “take care of themselves.” Budhari Solangi, 24, who was sitting with a group of other women under a tent made of reeds and tattered cloth, said all the children left are getting sick. “They have fevers and skin diseases that we have never seen before,” he said. She called her 7-year-old son back from the ruined edge of the mud. He lifted his leg to reveal a raw bumpy rash running down his ankle. “I don’t know what it is,” he said. While some boats are delivering food, she said no one has brought medicine to her area. The Pakistani navy has tried to encourage her to leave, but she said she does not want to break up her family and has heard horror stories about conditions on higher ground. Families rescued by boat are stranded along a highway miles from the nearest government camp, he said. And traveling on foot with small children would be impossible. “Our only option is to stay,” he said. ‘No one cares about us’: Pakistanis struggle for survival after floods At the water’s edge, Pakistani naval officers have set up an area to expand rescue operations and survey the damage. Behind them, hundreds of families who had chosen to leave their villages were crowding the highway. Many were still wet from the journey. Others were there for more than a week, living in shelters they assembled themselves. Under a tent of branches, scarves and woven reeds, a group of women held small bags of cooked rice and begged passers-by for help. “That’s all they gave us!” Naveeda Naich shouted across the street, gesturing to security forces a few meters away. “Nothing else, not even milk for our little ones.” When a ration truck pulled up, the women told their children to run toward it. “We send our sons and daughters to collect the food because the authorities are less harsh on them,” said Ghulam Zohra. Her husband once tried to bring back food for the family but was badly beaten by security forces when he tried to push through the crowd, she said. The aid truck was quickly surrounded by people desperate for food and baton-wielding police tried to disperse the crowd. “Look how they are treating us,” Zohra said, watching the scene and started to cry. Naikh hurled abuse at a passing Pakistani police truck. “You are dogs! All of you dogs! I spit on you!” she screamed. Zohra said she thought she was keeping her family safe by leaving their belongings behind and fleeing the floods, but now she is horrified by the conditions they are living in. “They don’t respect us,” he said of the authorities. “They just treat us with brutality.”
