MAKLI Even before the floods, Ramzano had it bad as she merely managed to eke out a miserable existence. Now, however, she has been forced to try and live off other people's generosity, of which there is no dearth but physical manifestations of which don't easily reach people like her.

Until Thursday Ramzano, a middle-aged widow, and her two teenaged sons were working hard — she as menial worker for a couple of middle-class families and the boys in a garage. Together they managed to pay the rent of the one-room house in Sujawal they called home, and for the food they ate. That was about all they could afford and yet they were content.

Then on Thursday evening came the dreadful news that floodwaters were rushing towards Sujawal. The authorities had ordered an immediate evacuation, Ramzano was told by her neighbours. Not knowing what she was supposed to do in such circumstances and terrified that the flood could snatch her most precious possession — her sons — from her, she joined the thousands of people who were fleeing the town.

They left their hometown simply in the clothes they were wearing, and they only brought with them a couple of bedsheets, some clothes and all the money they had. Like most of their neighbours they decided to move here, to Makli, which is situated on a hill near Thatta.

It took them about three hours to reach the historic graveyard of Samma, Arghun, Tarkhan and Mughal sultans and nobles, but in the process became poorer still. The reason the rickshaw driver who brought them here charged Rs1,000 for a journey for which he would normally charge Rs200.

Even before reaching Makli, Ramzano and her sons knew that the money they had wouldn't take them far. They had to be on the lookout for assistance. But on reaching here they found they faced tough competition, as Makli was already teeming with displaced people.

First night

They found that Makli — once known as “Makkah li” (or “Makkah for me”) — had tens of thousands of people who belonged to all the flood-hit parts of Thatta district. They came across homeless people from Sujawal, Darro, Mirpur Bathoro, Chuhar Jamali, Thatta and even Shah Karim.

Ramzano told Dawn that her first night in Makli was particularly chaotic. “None of us really knew what to do. I just asked my boys, Rasheed and Imran, to spread our bedsheets inside the graveyard, near the gates. And there we have been staying since then.

“Throughout that night we saw people streaming into Makli because people of Thatta also were asked to leave their homes that night. Many of them stayed inside the graveyard and others simply bedded down for the night by the road.”

The next day they had to buy food for breakfast, she said. “The aid people hadn't started coming in by that time. By the evening, however, some people did come to give us food, etc.”

According to Ramzano, the biggest problem facing her family was how to gather enough food to survive. “It's not that people are not generous. They have been sending us food and water, but there are so many of us here that the few trucks of food that come are emptied within no time,” she said.

She was right because this reporter saw the displaced people occupying almost every inch of Makli. They were squatting on the grounds of the court, outside the offices of the district administration, inside a stadium and even inside a tomb in the necropolis, that of Dewan Shurfa Khan that dates back to 1638.

Ramzano said the distribution of food was not being organised properly. “As it happens, a truck comes along with some food and the people who get to it before others get most of the food. This means that we actually have to fight for the food.

“Every family now has two or three members who are constantly on the lookout for such vehicles and for people who come here to give donations.

“I have also asked Rasheed and Imran to gather as much food from such trucks as possible. We also have to survive, you know. So now my two boys spend almost the entire day running after trucks.”