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The caller, Zulfiqar, is a relatively well-off businessman who had sheltered his family at a local guesthouse after they were forced to leave their area a few hundred kilometres away.
“All the shops near the river have closed and people are saying the river embankment is about to break. The city will be flooded,” he said.
Zulfiqar was not the only one to pose this question. A survey of the areas close to the river revealed just how disturbed the dwellers were. Misery was writ large on the face of every second person.
An apparent information blackout is not only adding to the fears but also paving way for conspiracy theories.
“It has become difficult to obtain clear facts and figures from the authorities. This is leading many people to believe that there is a deliberate attempt to mislead the public and the media. Perhaps their rationale is to avoid stirring panic by withholding information,” remarks a senior journalist reporting from the area.
Frustrations certainly go far beyond an information blackout. There is a widespread feeling that government officials are merely making visits for photo-sessions.
“I have been stuck in this scorching heat for the last 20 minutes. Police officials say they have stopped us because the chief minister's convoy is about to pass by,” says an angry motorist.
This correspondent witnessed and photographed many residents being pushed into their houses by army personnel and their doors bolt-locked from the outside as the roads were swept on the day the chief of army staff visited the city.
The public is generally of the view that such VIP/VVIP visits are merely proving instrumental in causing traffic jams.
As the Dawn team travelled along the Indus Highway in Shikarpur and Kashmore districts, thousands of people could be seen walking along the highway, many barefoot and visibly exhausted.
“My wife is pregnant and as you can see I also have my crippled father with me,” said Allah Dino who was frantically looking around for a ride.
“We have no food or water. We asked this navy truck to take us to Sukkur but they said they were carrying boats to a flooded area and had no space,” remarked one of the affected persons.
“Our job is simply to rescue the people stranded in waters. Once they are on the dry land, they are out of our jurisdiction,” said Lt-Commander Shabbir, adding that so far his team had rescued over 30,000 people.
Those who manage to make it to the relief camps have challenges of their own.
“You yourself are a witness as to how 30 people are crammed into this small classroom with no facilities. No official has visited us and the worst thing is we don't know what future holds for us,” remarked Allah Baksh as his two toddlers lay asleep on the roughly cemented floor with insects crawling over them.
For hundreds of thousands of such people in upper Sindh it's going to be a long hot summer in the open. And that too if they survived the harsh conditions and disease.
