“I have never seen such diseases before. The skin on my eldest daughter’s feet is peeling off,” said Halliman, sitting on a sharpoi at a girls’ college in Larkana, where she had taken shelter along with a hundred others. “It’s because of the floods and he was walking through the flood water with me for hours. It’s not just her legs, but her back, thighs and neck have abnormal rashes.” Devastating floods in Pakistan caused by heavy monsoon rains have killed more than 1,500 people, including 528 children, and affected an estimated 16 million children, according to Unicef. Authorities say the waters that have swept away homes, roads, crops, livestock and people will take at least three to six months to recede. The floods have also brought waterborne diseases. “Millions of people live under the open sky,” Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, last week. “Water causes waterborne diseases.” He urged the world to focus on the impact on children. The global debate on the Pakistan flood disaster should focus on the plight of children. The disaster has negatively affected millions of children with over 500 dead. Let these children not be a number, but a clarion call for swift action to rebuild their lives and futures. /AFP pic.twitter.com/uYvL5SBDAR — Shehbaz Sharif (@CMShehbaz) September 19, 2022 Halliman said her daughters are suffering. “The skin conditions are getting worse and my daughters fever is also not going down. I’m not getting any reasonable treatment here.” Haliman, with her four daughters, who all fell ill after the floods. Photo: Shah Meer Baloch/the Guardian At least 3.4 million girls and boys are still in need of immediate, life-saving support. Unicef’s representative in Pakistan, Abdullah Fadil, warned that without a massive increase in support, many more children would die. “The situation for Pakistani families is beyond grim and malnourished children struggle with diarrhea and malaria, dengue and many suffer from painful skin conditions,” he said. Rawat Khan, 47, holding her daughter Iqra, whose ear became discolored and had small spots of pus, said these diseases were not common before, but now all children were getting sick. Her son’s chest was also swollen. “Doctors are asking us to get tested in Karachi… but we can’t afford it. We have no money. We lost our homes and savings in the floods,” he said. “We only saved our lives. We couldn’t save anything else. We are helpless to watch our children get sick and there is nothing we can do about it. The government has failed us.” Zeeshan Chandio, who hails from a stricken village in Sindh province, held his son Nadeem in his arms. “I want help too and I don’t know what’s going on with my son. His stomach is not well and his belly is swollen.’ Dr Faiq Ali, who organized a medical camp in Warah, a village in Qambar Shahdadkot, one of the worst affected areas in Sindh province, said he saw more than 300 children on Sunday and all had various ailments including malaria, diarrhea and skin diseases. ailments. “These are all waterborne diseases. You see stagnant water in the flooded areas where mosquitoes are rampant and people don’t have clean drinking water and they walk in the polluted water and drink the same water. Everything is so bleak,” Ali said. He added that a large part of the population was affected and this was on a large scale. “Unfortunately, the government is not active as it should be, as we have never seen such disasters before. The National Disaster and Disaster Management Authority is also not playing an active role. We will see a bigger disaster in the form of diseases in the near future if the government remains inactive,” warned Ali. Many flood victims in Larkana said they lived in the constituency of Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and he had not visited them. They asked for his help for their children. Jafarabad, one of the worst-hit cities in Balochistan, which along with Sindh are the worst-hit provinces, presents the same grim picture where children are falling ill. Archie Bland and Nimo Omer take you to the top stories and what they mean, free every weekday morning Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online advertising and content sponsored by external parties. For more information, see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our site and Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Children in a tent in Jaffarabad, one of the worst affected areas in Pakistan. Photo: Shah Meer Baloch/the Guardian A woman, who requested anonymity, comforted her child in her arms. “We don’t get medicine, treatment, food or anything else for our children. My son has been vomiting for days but I don’t know the cause of his illness,” he said. Fadil said Pakistan’s children were paying the price for a climate disaster that was not of their making and the world should help them rebuild the lives of millions of vulnerable children in the coming months. “Besides the increase in diseases, education for children is our main concern,” he said. “In 81 areas affected by the disaster, children are out of school and even before this disaster in Pakistan, over 50% of children are out of school. “We don’t know when they will go back to school and that is worrying especially for girls in these areas, whether their parents will send them to school or marry them off. In Pakistan, early marriages are nothing new.” Zeeshan Ahmed Khan, nine, was studying in class three when his school was flooded. “I got new books when the new session started, but they were damaged in the flood,” he said. Allah Warayu had just moved into 4th grade when half of his school was drowned. “I miss school and my friends, but I have no idea where they are. Only my cousin is here with me and I have no idea where and how my other classmates are,” he added. Allah Warayu says he misses his school. Photo: Shah Meer Baloch/The Guardian Fadil said he had seen girls reading and studying in tents and camps for the first time in their lives. “I have seen young girls who, for the first time in their lives, are holding pencils and books in their hands on stage. They asked us to continue it. This was the most powerful and joyful thing I had seen. He must continue it and make sure that all girls and boys go to school.”
