Inundated, Unremembered, and Abandoned

 Thousands of people have perished or gone missing, and millions have been displaced in the FLOOD. Belt Saraiki

 

Don't annoy me! While Siraiki Waseeb's stepmother is sound asleep, her children are sitting outside in severely inundated areas while they wait for assistance from the government, which is currently out of reach.

 

Only a few metropolitan areas, like Taunsa, Dera Ghazi Khan, Jampur, and Rajanpur, are currently secure even though millions of people are impacted. Even these cities are in danger of severe flooding, and residents have been warned to leave them, resulting in sleepless nights.

 

In the abandoned Sairaiki belt, thousands of villages and small towns have disappeared, thousands of people have perished or gone missing, and millions have been displaced. The administration's callous response to a human tragedy of this proportion is nothing new. These places have previously gone through this, most recently in 2010, but as usual, there is no political will, and cities like Taunsa, the hometown of the last chief minister of Punjab, are also on the verge of flooding.

 

Unfortunately, the state of Pakistan never acknowledged its stepchildren who resided in the Siraiki-speaking region of southern Punjab, much less took concrete action to ensure their welfare and right to live.

 

For the record, it is South Punjab and should not be confused with Siraikistan because doing so would seriously compromise Takht-e-security. Lahore's The same Takht-e-Lahore is busily converting Gujrat from a district to a division at the same time as a disused and abandoned division is being severely overrun. The tribal regions of Taunsa and Rojhan in the western Dera Ghazi Khan division are severely affected by the torrential torrents from Koh-e-Suleman. However, the Indus River also poses a significant risk due to the continually rising flood levels.

 

All of the Buzdars, Lagharis, Mazaris, Khosas, and Dareshaks are only onlookers, and some of them are even contributing to the disaster by preventing floods from reaching destitute villages and protecting their own lands and crops. In the most recent elections, Gillani's, Qureshi's, Makhdoms, and all other political figures played the Siraiki card while ignoring the actual situation.

 

Numerous affluent and powerful officials and leaders, including the prime minister, president, governors, chief ministers, speakers, deputy speakers, and several current and former ministers at the federal and provincial levels, dwell in these flood-affected areas. On the surface, the PTI government elected its "Wasim Akram with several pluses" to improve the social fabric of this region, and the chief minister also worked to improve the overall situation. However, he was too busy to remember the impending threat of flood and did not take any timely preventative measures during his brief tenure.

 

Pervaiz Elahi took some time out of his busy schedule to announce token relief efforts that can only be viewed as too little, too late after Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif recently realized the gravity of climate change.

 

Some of these officials are attributing the construction of homes along waterways to citizens' ignorance and carelessness, but as far as we know, the state is responsible for ensuring that everyone has access to good healthcare, education, and employment opportunities. Dera Ghazi Khan and Rajanpur frequently come in last in the provinces, if not the nation's, rankings for population welfare, health, and education.

 

Mainstream media is unaware of this human catastrophe, except a few tickers and some news on international media channels. Social media is flooded with graphic images of children, women, and men losing their life, confirming that these individuals are the offspring of a lesser god and that our media is far too preoccupied with other topics of purported national importance. Not to mention rural areas, which are suffering the worst from the flooding; Fazil Pur, the third-largest city in the Rajanpur district, has been completely submerged by water, and residents of Rajanpur city have been urged to leave as soon as possible. Threats similar to this are present in all other big cities and towns.