Impact stories

The conflict raging in parts of northwestern Pakistan has not only forced thousands of people to flee their ancestral villages, it has also deprived them of their spiritual assets: their identity and personality.

Cyclone Aila struck southern Bangladesh on 25 May, devastating thousands of households and increasing the vulnerability of people living in the char (islands built up from silt in a river) regions of Bangladesh. A large number of homes are now underwater…

Kohinoor was seven months pregnant when she heard the cyclone warnings over the loudspeaker from the local mosque. In the region of Karringchar Union, a village in Hatiya where Kohinoor and her family live, natural disasters are frequent and residents…

“I don’t know where to begin picking up the pieces of my life. My house has collapsed. I also had some chickens with which I used to support my family but they are dead. I have been wearing this sari for the last five days as I don’t have any clothes…

“I will never forget 25th May for the rest of my life, especially how my life changed within a matter of few hours,” says Sheikh Ahmedullah, reliving those moments when his entire household and his meagre belongings were swept away.

I thought it was an innocent question: what’s your favourite story? But for a group of children who have lived a real-life horror story, I shouldn’t have been surprised by the answer.

I didn’t notice anything different about her, at first; 10-year-old Priyana* is a beautiful, perfect little girl, and her face lit up as she smiled at me.

Cradling her two-month-old son in her arms, Laxmi* smiled as the baby yawned and reached for her. “I am happy we are safe,” she said softly, sitting on a mat in an emergency tent. “I only wish my husband could have met his son.

Manik Farm, the largest of the camps, has become a vast sea of emergency tents. It is here, in “zone 02”, where most of the new arrivals from the conflict zone