URGENT- Forcible eviction of Flood Affected people in Karachi

A very urgent appeal was emailed by Zulfiqar Shah of Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research [PILER] to a number of mailing lists appealing for help in preventing the forcible eviction of over 10,000 flood affected IDP’s from their camp in Karachi… In my opinion there might seem to be an ulterior political motive to shove them out of Karachi – for the sake of Humanity this must stop – CAN YOU HELP – the message reads as follows,

This is an urgent appeal for your immediate intervention to save flood affected families from forcible eviction.

  1. About 10,000 flood affected people got settled at Labour Square camp in Gulshan- e- Maymar Karachi. This is a government recognized camp.
  2. Last week local revue official (Mukhtiarkar) made an announcement that people should evacuate camp within one week otherwise they will be forcibly evacuated by 5th October;
  3. This resulted in protest by affected people and smaller level scuffle between revenue officials, affected people etc;
  4. On last Sunday, Al- Khair Trust stopped supply of food and to our information many families are sleeping hungry. We can only bring 20 children to PILER centre for lunch today as they had not eaten for last two days. They aged 4 to 12 years;
  5. Food supply of the camp was initiated by Sylani Welfare Trust, run by liberal and moderate people but surprisingly this was replaced with Al Khair Trust, run by hard core religious people;
  6. Flood affected families with women, children were in fear, many of them without food for last two days but now worst has came in the shape of threat of eviction;
  7. By the time I write this mail ( 13: 50 PM / Tuesday 5th October), five to six police vehicles along with lady police have reached to camp and many of camp residents rushed to us crying that they are being forcibly evacuated. “My village Mirpur Buriro in District Jacobabad is still under water, please go and see; where we can go? Its cruelty to evict us” Says Muzafar, a young resident of camp.

It’s surprising that the government wants to evict these people. It’s equally surprising that this camp is not in a school that government want vacated to reopen school. This camp is in an empty building which was empty for last 3 years and there is no problem if it run additional 3 months.

Government had not given any indication of such an eviction initially. It has only came up with the idea a few days ago. It’s likely that these people will be forcibly evicted and this may result in another catastrophe for them.

Please intervene and do whatever you can do to stop this eviction.

Zulfiqar Shah, PILER
021 3 6351145-7


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Comments

6 responses to “URGENT- Forcible eviction of Flood Affected people in Karachi”

  1. JJ Avatar
    JJ

    Sir, you are one of the great men in Pakistan. I would be honored to shake your hand.

  2. Ss Avatar
    Ss

    It was really Sad to read the currnet update..

    I just hope that the situation wouldbe better soon.. i know i can just hope for the good. coz everything is going worst day by day….:(

    I mean we all should now atleast standup for our rights ,. I just hope the affected people would find better alternative for there survival..

  3. aflatoon Avatar
    aflatoon

    Dr. Awab,

    This is a two sided sword. There is one group who is forcing them to stay in their camps and occupy the temporary housing, mostly under construction buildings and houses, not for humanity but for political reasons.

    Do you have the balls to name the names? Jeay Sindh Mahaz, Sindh National Front and other ethnic based parties are forcing the poor people to not go back to their homes and stay in Karachi.

    Their targets are political too.

    So in absense of laws and authority, how can you realy side with one and not the other group?

    1. Teeth Maestro Avatar

      Aflatoon

      I totally agree with you – the Sindhi element wants them to settle closer to Karachi so that "the vote bank" cna be increased whilst it will also help bolster the MQM-Pathan-Sindhi battle – as the PPP element is feeling left out at not being able to leverage the metropolitan politics –

      Who do we side – quite simply I choose to favor the poor, if they want them extradited out of this area – alternate arrangements be made / but we have to wait UNTIL the flooded lands are a little better off – and I still say you need to give them license for another month if not slightly more – Now is too quick and suspicious of political motivations

  4. aflatoon Avatar
    aflatoon

    Dr. Awab,

    We have politicized each and every thing in our lives. Each ethnic group sees other ethnic group as enemy. In such an environment nothing seems to be done for humanity, its all struggle to recruit followers for their own agendas.

    I think you missed the news items in jang, I can not produce the exact links right now but there were news in Jang when there was a fight between a group of poor farmers who wanted to go home to their villages but people of a hate-group were forcing them to stay.

  5. sameer Avatar
    sameer

    The flood have been over, people need to go out to their homes insted of living miserebly in camps. The NGO must help to rebuild their homes and for the life in their respected areas.