The 'water mafias' that suck Karachi dry
KARACHI: The moment they saw the city water tanker stop in their neighbourhood, Mohammed and Nayla rushed towards it. That day, the water was free — a rare event in Karachi, where organised gangs siphon it off to sell to thirsty residents.
In Sadiqabad and other Karachi slums, water barely flows through the pipe meant to supply the shacks packed along the rutted earth lanes.
The shortage doesn't just annoy the millions of residents in Pakistan's largest city — this summer it exacerbated the effects of a heatwave which killed more than 1,200 people.
Read: 32 deaths in Karachi take Sindh heatwave toll to 1,242
Over recent decades Karachi has expanded in an uncontrolled, unplanned way, booming from 500,000 to 20 million inhabitants in the space of 60 years and sprawling over an area 33 times the size of central Paris.