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.
A group of nine major international aid agencies (ActionAid, CAFOD/Caritas, Care, Concern Worldwide, Islamic Relief, Merlin, Oxfam, Save the Children, World Vision) said today that their aid effort of reaching over 1 million victims of the fighting in Swat valley of Pakistan was under threat due to a lack of funds.
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. The chars are remote and disconnected from all modern facilities as it is, and now the cyclone has added to the misery of the people
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 are exposed to struggles and face grave losses
“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 left,” says Namita Manna. She belongs to Kesto Mohanpur village in Patherpratima Block of South 24 Pargana - one of the villages severely affected by Cyclone Aila, which hit the State of West Bengal on 25th & 26th May.
“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.
This lush, green village should be a bucolic place. But it is full to bursting with some 30,000 people who have fled their homes.
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.
More than 500,000 people have been displaced and at least 100 killed after Cyclone Aila slammed into Bangladesh and Eastern India yesterday, and information is still coming in of extensive damage in remote, low-lying islands.
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