MITHI: Members of the National Commission for Human Rights (NCHR) and Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research (Piler) said on Thursday that successive droughts and callousness on the part of government have caused the situation in the desert to assume alarming proportions.

It was undeniable proof to the government’s callousness that despite death of hundreds of children no serious effort had been made so far to fill posts of over 300 doctors lying vacant in Thar hospitals for the past many years, they said.

The NCHR team comprising retired Justice Ali Nawaz Chowhan and Anees Haroon and Piler members told journalists at the Thar Press Club that an unspecified number of desert families had migrated to barrage areas over the past four years due to a lack of fodder and water.

They stressed the need for formulating a comprehensive policy to save the area from further devastation.

The NCHR team that arrived in Mithi late on Thursday night along with Piler members visited a number of villages and held meetings with government officials as well as representatives of NGOs to assess the situation and their efforts to provide relief to people.

Members of civil society and Piler’s Karamat Ali and Dr Sono Khanghrani informed the team that the Sindh government was not making serious efforts to mitigate sufferings of Thar and where about 250 children had died from malnutrition and other diseases.

They said that instead of launching small projects to provide potable water to 1.5 million people the government was relying on a few costly reverse osmosis plants, which too mostly remained out of order.

Dr Satram Roopani, representative of the Health and Nutrition Development Society, told the team that resolution of health issues of the desert needed long-term policies.

Teerath Das of Sukaar Foundation said that provision of safe drinking water was the biggest issue of the desert.

Presence of fluoride and arsenic in subsoil water was causing fatal diseases among desert people, he said.

Partab Shivani of Alif Ailaan said that literacy rate was on the decline because of successive droughts, displacement of people on a large scale and government indifference.

Justice Chowhan assured members of civil society that the team would submit a detailed report to the prime minister, National Assembly, Senate and Sindh Assembly on Tharis woes and set up a special cell on Thar in the commission’s office in Islamabad to provide a forum to people to submit their complaints, he said.

Five more children die in Thar

Five more children died from malnutrition and other diseases in government hospitals across Thar over the past two days. A pregnant Ms Surhi also died at Mithi Civil Hospital allegedly because of doctors’ negligence.

Five-year-old Deedar Ali and a newborn died at the civil hospital while Mahaya of seven months, Sanullah of six months and Sabita Kaloi lost lives at rural health centers in Islamkot and Kaloi towns.

Meanwhile relatives of Surhi staged a demonstration outside the Mithi civil hospital and demanded thorough probe into the woman’s death.

Published in Dawn, March 11th, 2016