By Kulsoom Zakir
August 6, 2010 began pretty much the same as any other day in Irfan’s life. His father had been called to an important village meeting in the presence of Jirga elders.
“Irfan laughed when he heard this. He guessed that one of Bashira’s cows must be missing again. The man was reputed to losing track of them while they grazed, and would pester village elders to investigate the robbery further. Eventually the cow would wander back, leaving Bashira red in the face,” explains a woeful Amina, Irfan’s mother.
Unfortunately the matter Jirga elders were discussing was a little more pressing than Bashira’s lost cattle. As Irfan left to work the crops with his elder brother that morning, the floods raged across northern Pakistan and were rapidly heading south towards his village in Thatta, located in Sindh province. All the elders agreed if the threat was serious enough the government would have sent its disaster management team to warn them. So instead, they decided to stay behind and protect their heritage.
“After all, we were situated a few hundred kilometers from Makli Hills…I taught my kids about King Jam Nizamuddin who is buried there. I showed them his tomb. We couldn’t just abandon our home and farms,” explains Iqbal, a resident of Thatta district.
Fast forward to the present: Amina has been relocated to a flood relief camp set up on Makli Hills. Her husband and elder son are dead. They drowned in the sudden floods that enveloped their village in the middle of the night. And Irfan, her youngest, was trampled to death by a stampede of hungry flood victims rushing towards a relief truck packed with food supplies. Iqbal, too, is a weary member of the same camp.
I first heard their story through a friend who was working to support the victims. She felt we were not doing enough, and it was now time to do it ‘our’ way!
