Mussarat Shaheen was fast asleep in her home in Pir Sabaq village, Nowshera, in the Khyber- Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan when she was woken by water soaking her clothes. Rising from her bed, she found her house was two feet deep in water, and the level was rapidly increasing.
The widowed mother of four, quickly woke her children and escaped the floodwaters with just the clothes they stood in. Swollen by heavy monsoon rains, the Kabul River had broken its banks, destroying entire villages in its path. Pir Sabaq was simply washed away.
The family headed for the house of a relative in the neighbouring village. Normally a two-hour journey, it now took a day and a half. The following day Mussarat learnt that a camp had been set up near her flooded village. Not wanting to become a burden on her relatives, she moved her family to the camp for displaced people.
Mussarat is no stranger to hardship. Her husband died two years ago, leaving her with four children to raise. She had to move in with her elderly parents, and rely on the support of her brother who works as a casual labourer in Rawalpindi.
Tent life
When they spoke to Islamic Relief staff, the family had been living in the tent for a week, with nothing but the clothes they were wearing. The tent offers some protection from the heavy rains, but the children are exposed to damp, muddy conditions, snakes and insect pests.
Mussarat’s youngest child, a two-and-a-half-year-old girl, has fallen ill. Spending all day in the cold and walking around in dirty water has also caused skin problems, but Mussarat has no money to buy medication.
Maintaining good hygiene is difficult in camps but critical in preventing the spread of disease. Female staff from Islamic Relief conducted hygiene sessions with women in the camp, and provided hygiene kits to help them stay as clean and healthy as possible.
Displaced families, like Mussarat’s, urgently need food, clothes, and medicines to help them survive the aftermath of a disaster which has claimed everything they own.