SUKKUR: A six-year-old girl reportedly died of starvation and illness at a makeshift shelter near a filling station on the National Highway in Patni area on Friday, sparking protest by over 200 rain-hit families against .Rohri mukhtiarkar, who failed to “provide them food and other relief goods in time”

The protesters told media persons that they had been waiting for official aid since they had reached Sukkur from Jacobabad district after the torrential destroyed everything they had.

The officials came only to collect data but neither of them sent them any relief items such as food, tents, mosquito nets and other necessary goods so that they could feed their starving children and protect their families against diseases, they said.

They said that no medical team had visited them to check their children and women, who were suffering from various diseases after the rains. “When our children started starving, we went to the mukhtiarkar’s office in Rohri for aid but we received neither food, nor tents. In the meanwhile, the six-year-old Razia daughter of Khalid Khoso died of starvation and disease,” said the girl’s father.

When the news about the girl’s death spread, local people and former member of Khoso Ittehad Farman Khoso helped the family in the burial and provided ration bags to all the rain-stricken families, said the protesters.

Talking to media persons, Farman Khoso appealed to district administration to take care of the helpless rain-hit families and provide them food immediately so that no more children died from starvation.

Locals said that the Sukkur bench of the Sindh High Court had directed officials of the administration to accommodate the rain-hit people in camps and provide them relief items. The death of the child was a gross negligence on the officials’ part and their indifference to the court directives for the protection of rain-hit people, they said.

Published in Dawn, September 10th, 2022