or many years, Rano Bheel and his family have been working on a piece of agricultural land owned by a local zamindar in a village near Khairpur Nathan Shah in Dadu district. Last year, he lost his home and livelihood as well as some of his family members following the flash floods that inundated a vast area in the western Sindh.

Heavy monsoon rains in August inundated a vast area of Sindh, Balochistan, southern Punjab and Swat in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Sindh was the worst affected province; 23 out of its 30 districts were declared calamity-hit areas by the provincial government.

Bheel initially moved his family to a tent near Dadu after they were rescued from their submerged village. For a week or so, the district administration provided food to the flood-affected people in the camps. Survival became difficult once their only source of livelihood, that is crops, was destroyed. Bheel’s landlord refused to extend them help.

While at the camp, Bheel’s nine-year-old daughter contracted dengue fever and did not get medical help. She passed away. There were more casualties among his close relatives due to malaria. The family decided to move to their ancestral village in the Thar desert as more members were falling sick due to the mosquitoes in the tents surrounded by floodwater.

But conditions in their village were also not favourable. Monsoon rains had also hit Mirpurkhas and Umerkot districts. The Left Bank Outfall Drain, which carries saline water, industrial effluents and floodwater from more than two million hectares of land in Shaheed Benazirabad, Sanghar, Mirpurkhas and Badin districts was damaged at several places in Sanghar and Mirpurkhas districts. Breaches in the LBOD had caused the inundation of agricultural lands.

The 2022 floods not only destroyed homes, agricultural lands and civic infrastructure but also livelihoods and employment of millions of people. Standing crops of cotton, sugarcane, rice and vegetables were destroyed in the flood-hit districts, according to a government survey, conducted with support from the World Bank.

Over 4.4 million acres of agricultural land has been destroyed in Sindh. Irrigation and flood protection systems serving more than half a million farmers on 5.1 million hectares of farmland have been severely damaged in the province. Floods have drowned animals and damaged infrastructure, adversely impacting the livestock sector. About 249,000 livestock, including cows and poultry worth $117.3 million were lost.

The federal government announced a cash grant of Rs 25,000 per flood-affected family through the Benazir Income Support Programme. There were many complaints regarding the disbursement of funds, mostly from religious minorities, scheduled castes, disabled people and transgender persons.

While at the camp, Bheel’s nine-year-old daughter contracted dengue fever and did not get medical help. She passed away. There were more casualties among his close relatives due to malaria. The family decided to move to their ancestral village in the Thar desert as more members were falling sick due to the mosquitoes in the tents surrounded by floodwater. 

Most of the scheduled caste communities work as share-croppers. They have been the most affected section of the society in Sindh.

A survey by a civil society organisation, The Knowledge Forum (TKF), in collaboration with the National Commission for Human Rights revealed that the experience of those from Bheels, Meghwars and Kolhis among the scheduled castes and the Christian community has been particularly bad. That is because many of the affected people from the scheduled communities were dependent on agriculture and floodwater had inundated land and deprived them of their livelihood.

Most of them had lived in mud houses on land they do not own, in some cases state land. Such houses have often not been surveyed for assessment of the damage.

The rains in 2011 in the upper Sindh and the resulting damage were less severe than the 2022 floods. Also, in 2011 relief efforts had started early and people had received more support from the NGOs and INGOs that had helped the vulnerable communities and women recover from the calamity. This time that support was absent as many INGOs have closed their offices in the country.

Financial assistance has been generally lacking following the 2022 floods. This is particularly true for the vulnerable communities. Many government officials and charity workers TKF researchers spoke to said that these communities were in a more precarious situation than other flood affected.

Some physicians told TKF researchers that individuals from the vulnerable communities were affected more but there had been no additional mechanism to focus on them. They said some of the measures needed to provide necessary care for expecting women had not been taken. This, they said, had caused them great difficulties.

A local civil society activist said at a camp in Govt SM Khawaja High School in Nawabshah families from the scheduled castes were housed in the corridors. He said Muslim families had been given rooms in the school. “Not a single scheduled caste family has been housed in a room in the school,” he said.

In some districts, including Dadu and Qambar Shahdadkot, the government has stopped relief work. Officials say they are now focusing on rehabilitation and reconstruction. One of the women at a relief camp said that women, children and the elderly were getting sick due to cold. She said the temperature had frequently been as low as 8 degrees Celsius. Many families have two or three members suffering from malaria.

Anis Haroon, the National Commission for Human Rights member, underlined the need to devise a mechanism for speedy rehabilitation. She said pregnant women, persons with disabilities, children and people with compromised health are suffering the most in the camps. She also said that the government should ensure transparency in the rehabilitation process and that the vulnerable communities, often affected the most, are not discriminated against.

After the conference in Geneva on January 9, the government expects to receive $10 billion in financial support from the international community for the rehabilitation of the flood-affected. The World Bank has already approved $1.69 billion support for Sindh Flood Emergency Rehabilitation project.

The writer is a senior journalist, working for a news channel in Karachi. He can be reached shuja98@gmail.com