My name is Mohammad Qasim, from the small town of Khairpur in the Sanghar area of Sindh Province, one of the regions most affected by the floods. I have been working since 2012 as a project manager and team leader at Qatar Charity’s office in Khairpur, Sindh. Here, I document my unforgettable observations of the devastating floods that hit the region in August 2022, especially those concerning my hometown.
Table of contents
Duty of Consolation
Within just one week of the heavy rains, access to our field areas became impossible. As a team leader at Qatar Charity’s Khairpur office, I had to halt all ongoing development projects and shift our focus to coordinating with government offices and conducting field assessments of the current situation in the flood-affected areas. The entire region was submerged, and people were scrambling to reach temporary government shelters or elevated land along the roads. We provided all possible support to transport people to safer locations.
Fortunately, Qatar Charity was one of the first organizations to respond to the flood disaster, particularly in the Khairpur area, promptly providing family tents, dry food baskets, and personal hygiene supplies.
In my fieldwork over the years, I had witnessed many cases of poverty, misery, and the impact of diseases and epidemics. However, this was the first time I saw destruction, suffering, and death so close to me. Daily, after distributing aid, we attended funerals with the affected communities and prayed for the victims. It was particularly heartbreaking for me to console mothers who lost their children to waterborne diseases during and after the floods, which could have been prevented.
Rescuing the Stranded
While traveling by boat to distribute aid to remote areas on the outskirts of the region, we encountered people trapped in the flooded areas who had not left their homes when the floods started. It was our duty to help them and ensure their safety.
Once, I met a group of men stranded on rooftops, waving and shouting for help as we approached. When we reached them, we found that they had elderly people with them who were weakened by hunger, and we had to bring them back with us on our boat.
By the second week of our emergency relief operations, I discovered that the floods had also reached my city, Sanghar. Fortunately, the floodwaters did not significantly enter my village, but many of my relatives in the area had to relocate to safer places. It was an extremely challenging time for me, working as a relief worker during the day and consoling my family over long phone calls at night. While no injuries occurred in my family, we lost all our crops, which we had planned to store and use for the entire next year. This loss, however, was minor compared to the plight of the people in my work area, where access to drinking water became a precious commodity.
Joy and Pride
A year has passed since the flood disaster, yet I still find myself unable to erase the images of destruction and suffering from my memory. At the same time, I feel joy, pride, and satisfaction that I was one of the first to leave my area to help the affected.
It is a great blessing from Allah to be able to provide assistance to those in need. These individuals have left their homes, schools, and jobs, and are currently waiting for a tent to shelter in with their families and children, as well as a meal to alleviate their hunger.
