Women struggle with basic needs in Pakistan’s flood relief camps

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In Chung, women, who have a settlement on the outskirts of Lahore, have limited access to sanitary pads and essential medicines, including pregnancy care, because the devastating floods in East Pakistan have temporarily forced many families to stay in relief camps.

In a previous classroom, now a temporary relief camp, pregnant women, take shelter from the floods who have destroyed Punjab, their bodies are hurting, their eyes are heavy with exhaustion and silent frustration.

With his first child, 19 -year -old and seven -month -old pregnant Shumila Riyadh spent the last four days in relief camp, suffering from pregnancy pain.

He told AFP, “I wanted to think about the child I am about, but now, I am not sure about my future.”

Hidden in dirty clothes that they are wearing for days and without brush hair, women are entering the crowded school, which has hosted more than 2,000 people, with mud and stagnant rain water all around.

“My body suffers a lot and I can’t get my medicines,” said 19 -year -old Fatima, a one -year -old daughter and 19 -year -old Fatima, 19 -year -old Fatima.

Fatima added, “I used to eat my custom, as I sleep asleep, as I want to walk – now it’s all over. I can’t do it here.”

During the last week, monsoon rains intensified three major rivers that cut half of the people of Punjab, Pakistan’s agricultural heartland and half of its 255 million people.

According to provincial senior minister Mary Aurangzeb, the number of victims increased to more than two million on Sunday.

According to the provincial government, about 750,000 people have been evacuated, out of which 115,000 were rescued by boat – according to the provincial government, it became the largest rescue operation in the history of Punjab.

Flooding rivers have affected most of the rural areas near their shore, but heavy rains have also caused floods in urban areas, including several parts of Lahore. It is the second largest city in the country.

Although the seasonal monsoon in South Asia is raining, which relies on farmers, climate change is making this trend more extraordinary and deadly in the region.

More than 850 people have killed more than 850 people across the country since June.

The provincial minister said on Sunday that at least 32 people were killed in the latest rains.

Infection and trauma

Sleeping in tents with thin wood sticks, women who are displaced by floods struggle to get sanitary pads and clean clothes when their periods are bleeding.

Menstruation is a taboo topic in Pakistan, many women discourage talking about it.

“When we get our term, we are struggling to get a pad,” said 35 -year -old Alima Bibi.

“We go to nearby homes to use the bathroom,” he added.

Jamila, who uses only one name, said she looks for privacy in a temporary bathroom with cow clothing.

“We wait for men to go to these homes, so that we can use the bathroom and change our pads,” he said.

AFP journalists saw that outside the medical truck with a relief camp, a concerned woman asked where her eight -month -old pregnant daughter -in -law had gone to work.

According to doctors at a medical camp established by a local NGO, pregnant women are also at risk of infectious diseases.

“I get 200 to 300 patients daily with various infections and water -borne diseases,” said Fahad Abbas, 27, a medical camp doctor.

“There are many patients here who are passing through psychological trauma, especially women and children after losing their homes.”

According to the World Health Organization, even without a flood crisis, 675 children under a month die every day in Pakistan, as well as 27 women were included in the stages of complications to prevent.

Another woman, who wanted to be anonymous, said the medicine she once used to handle her period of pain was very difficult to buy.

“We survived death, but this suffering is nothing short of death,” said Jamila.