Pakistan flood story #6: Setting up a refugee camp - a photo essay

In the Shikarpur bypass area, thousands of people were living on the roadside and the bridge:
 

The roads are cutoff by flood waters.  The conditions are terrible, made worse by the hot weather and the inhospitable landscape. If urgent action is not taken, epidemics and medical emergencies are inevitable:

The region, the interior of Sind, is one of the poorest areas of Pakistan. The people living on the roads were already on or below the poverty line. The floods have dealt a devastating blow to them.

Very little aid had reached this area and the Watan Foundation was the only NGO providing organized aid to the Internally Displaced Peoples (IDPs) here. They had managed to set up a registration and a small medical camp.

Food was being provided twice a day. However this was becoming more and more difficult as food and ration vans were starting to get mobbed.

YPO Pakistan (a chapter of the international Young Presidents Organization) came in to work with Wattan to provide essentail materials needed to create a camp to house 1,000 people.

The first day was spent assessing the situation on the ground and scouting for an appropriate location for the camp. This turned out to be a bigger challenge than they had anticipated.

It took until nightfall to secure land near the Shikarpur bypass. The supplies arrived at 2.30 AM that night and the next day was spent setting up the camp.

Views of the site before the camp was set up:

Materials arriving:

Ground cleared and work starts:

People start moving into the camp while work is ongoing:
 

Waiting for shelter:

Nearing completion:

Finally a reason to smile:

 

Adapted from a report via Farrukh H. Khan

More news from YPO Pakistan here >> www.ypopakistan.com

More news from The Watan Foundation here >> www.watan.org.pk

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If you have a story from the Pakistan floods, please email it to chris@ted.com (Pakistan floods: the stories we're not being told  http://bit.ly/9RI2Jm).

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(posted by Jane Wulf)