Islamic charities are on the ground providing aid in flood-hit Pakistan, but there is still widespread devastation as the floods spread south, writes Jonathan Miller from the country.
We have driven about six hours south of Islamabad today, into northwestern Punjab. We passed through the town of Mianwali, where the surrounding land has been quite badly affected by the floods. Then we headed west down to the Indus River.
Across this region, it’s been reported that more than 1,000 villages have been submerged and 25,000 homes destroyed.
We passed through flooded rice fields and people were congregating on the side of the road looking for help. There were many such groups.
At one point we stopped to find out what they were doing. It was a little alarming to see the aid post festooned with a banner whose motif was a long Jihadi sword.
The Urdu script read: Falah-e-Insaniat.
This group is the latest incarnation of a notorious Islamist militant group. They used to be called Jamaat-ud-Dawa and before that Lashkar-e-Toiba. Both of the previous incarnations had been banned by the Pakistani government. Laskhar-e-Toiba is widely deemed responsible for the attack on Mumbai in November 2007.
Falah-e-Insaniat is one of several Islamist humanitarian charities to capitalise on the disaster and provide support in the absence of much in the way of government assistance. They are operating in many areas, from the province of Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa in the northwest right down through Punjab.
They are giving food and medical assistance to tens of thousands of people and have also sent many rescue teams to further flung parts affected by the flood.
I spoke to one of the group members who was giving out aid. He gave his name as Shafqat Khan.
He repeatedly insisted that they had no political intentions and that their purpose here was strictly humanitarian. He said the infrastructure of the area had been completely destroyed. Because nobody else was giving aid, their group had stepped in.
“We thought the rescue effort would come more quickly, with foreign countries and the UN coming to our aid but no one has yet arrived,” he said.
It’s already been several days since the floods reached their highest level in this area. We crossed the Indus River, which was still high in flood, although clearly the water level had dropped by several metres.
We visited the town of Kalabagh. It is nestled under a mountain, behind which Islamist insurgent groups have their bases. Another group of Islamist humanitarian workers was distributing aid in Kalabagh, where many of the houses along the riverside have been completely destroyed.
I met the local governor who said that the area had suffered a catastrophe and he hoped assistance would come.
A local man called Fazal Akhmed Qazi told me of their disbelief that they’d had no help at all.
On the telephone I spoke to a man called Ali Mullah, the vice president of the Chamber of Commerce in the town of Dera Ismail Khan on the west bank of the Indus. The town has received many thousands of people who have been displaced by fighting with the Taliban along the Afghan frontier, in neighbouring Waziristan.
He told me the situation in this town was terrible.
“We have very bad flooding,” he said. “There are many, many homeless people. They are suffering very badly.”
He said that in the town itself more than 100 people had drowned. The surrounding area was completely flooded. The airport was damaged and unusable. And he said they had received no foreign help at all.
The insecurity associated with the Islamist insurgency would be the biggest thing preventing foreign aid groups from going to this region.
Mr Ali Mullah said relief camps had been set up by local donors and the Chamber of Commerce was providing what assistance they could.
He also said that the army helicopters were playing a vital role because all of the roads were flooded and tens of thousands of people were stranded. The army had been dropping food. He said they needed not only food, but drinking water and tents for shelter.
The area to the east of the Indus River, which has also been badly affected, is Pakistan’s rice bowl. Not only does it produce food for Pakistan it provides rice for exports. The food crops will have been totally destroyed. There is a growing recognition among UN and other aid agencies that the crisis caused by the floods will be prolonged, and will become a wider food and economic crisis.
Where we were, the flood waters have receded but the Indus was still surging south. A high volume of water is expected to hit the southern parts of Punjab and Sindh province in the next couple of days. Watching Pakistani TV, there is a rising level of alarm among local people who fear the inundation of the cities of Hyderabad and Karachi. The evacuation of some parts is already in progress.