MITHI: A large number of rain and flood affected people from different areas of Thar and other districts staged a 50-kilometre-long march on foot from Naukot Fort to Mithi town on Sunday and staged a protest demonstration, demanding relief goods.

They demanded of the functionaries concerned to provide them food, medicines, safe drinking water and other basic amenities of life.

Leading the march, Mavi Kolhi, Soomri Bai and Sobho Bheel said in their speeches that they were forced to leave their villages after the heavy downpour and subsequent breaches in the Left Bank Outfall Drain, and other drains and irrigation waterways submerged their abodes.

The protesters, who have taken shelter atop sand dunes in Tharparkar district, deplored that Pakistan Peoples Party chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari and Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah had issued directives during their visit to Thar to the functionaries concerned for extending help to the rain victims, but they continued to experience subhuman conditions at the relief camps.

They said they were exposed to the sunlight and were facing multiple chronic issues while their aged family members and children were suffering from various water-borne diseases after drinking highly contaminated water.

They threatened to besiege the office of the Thar DC if they were not provided with relief items announced by the high-ups of the Sindh government.

They alleged that officials, including the DC, were distributing the relief goods only among their favorites on chits issued by PPP leaders.

Published in Dawn, September 21st, 2020