Misery engulfs Pakistani province
Many in Baluchistan waiting for relief aid months after floods
GANDAKHA, Pakistan — Maryam Jamali should have been preparing for an economics exam. Instead, the teenager from the floodhit Pakistani province of Baluchistan was helping organize postpartum clinics and shelter for people neglected by relief efforts.
Baluchistan is Pakistan’s largest and poorest province, plagued by climate change, underdevelopment, bad governance, corruption and a long-running insurgency. When catastrophic floods submerged vast swaths of Pakistan this summer, about 75% of Baluchistan’s population was affected, the largest proportion of any province in the country.
Yet recovery here has been slower, and residents say they are paying the price of years of neglect by the local and central governments. Red tape is making it difficult for international aid workers to reach devastated areas. Much of the already dilapidated pre-flood infrastructure has been washed away, further hampering aid efforts.
People still wade in waisthigh water or float on rafts through Baluchistan’s fields.
On the potholed road to Jamali’s village, there are deep ruts carved out by desperate locals to free trapped floodwaters. It is an uncomfortable car journey around the province’s flood-affected areas, though not so impossible or inaccessible as to be a reason for the slowness of aid.
It is a contrast to neighboring Sindh province, an agricultural, commercial and manufacturing hub, where pumps were brought in to remove floodwaters. Now there is little sign the city was ever flooded.
Baluchistan was not so
prepared, despite disaster striking it often. There was severe flooding in 2010 and 2011. The arid region normally has low rainfall, but any rain in this mountainous area can cause flash floods.
Jamali, her father and dozens of volunteers have helped more than 20,000 flood survivors since midJune.
“We haven’t seen any international organizations come here themselves,” said 19-year-old Jamali. “Maybe they think this is a scary place. It’s not, it’s just a lack of effort on their part. It’s difficult to navigate through the bureaucracy. Because of all those hurdles they just didn’t come here this time.”
A drainage canal not far from her village illustrates what residents say is infrastructure that protects
Sindh at the expense of Baluchistan.
Water from Baluchistan’s Gandakha city is meant to be drained toward Sindh through the canal. But only one of the canal’s five gates are open. Cement seals the rest. The floodwater was choking the city at one point, Jamali said.
Baluchistan is not a political or economic heavyweight and doesn’t have a political patron like other provinces. Sindh is the power base of the Bhutto dynasty. Punjab is the home of a past and present prime minister and contributes the most to Pakistan’s gross domestic product, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is a stronghold of former premier Imran Khan.
Though Pakistan’s largest province, Baluchistan is its least populated and made
up largely of mountains. It’s also a center for the country’s small ethnic Baluch minority, who say they face discrimination from the central government. That has fueled a separatist insurgency demanding independence.
The government says it has mostly quelled the insurgents, but violence persists.
Local politician Sana Baloch claims the flood relief focus has been on Sindh and that there is a closed-door policy for Baluchistan, unfairly using the insurgency as an excuse.
“International agencies and groups are willing to support people, but they are not welcomed by the federal government,” Baloch said. “They are not encouraged or allowed to come here.”
But there has also been
criticism of local authorities for doing little even as the scale of the crisis grew.
An official from Baluchistan’s disaster management authority, Naseer Nasir, said the central government had provided sufficient funds that were being distributed locally. He also said the authority had passed on people’s complaints to the provincial government.
The tents of Pakistani charities are in floodaffected areas. Because of bureaucratic hurdles, foreign NGOs are partnering with local organizations, which don’t need permits for their work, said Huzaifa Rafique, from one Pakistani charity, Baitussalam.
The province’s lack of social development only worsens the disaster. Poverty forces people to live on floodplains, while illiteracy
keeps them from adapting to the effects of climate change, Rafique said.
Although the province receives tens of millions of dollars for development work — the World Bank had a $250 million portfolio there as of 2019 — its human development indicators are dire. The maternal mortality rate is 298 per 100,000 live births, Pakistan’s highest. Its literacy rate is around 40%, and 40% of its population live in poverty, both the worst rates in the country.
“The difference between an educated person and an illiterate person in everyday life is that he knows how to get help, he knows how to plug into the setup,” said Abdul Shakoor, of the charity AlKhidmat. “In the coming years, there should be a focus on educating Baloch children.”