Say hello to Saira.
She's being fed through a tube. Why?
Because she's too weak to eat, and her body's unable to process food properly.
At the time of this photo (September 12), Saira was at the Railway Hospital in Sukkur - one of the areas of Pakistan most catastrophically affected by the floods.
I don't know whether she's still alive.
Come. There are other children you should meet.
The eyes see. The ears hear. Yet, somehow, the mind struggles to grasp the full dimension of this catastrophe.
Almost 20 million people need shelter, food and emergency care. That is more than the entire population hit by the Indian Ocean tsunami, the Kashmir earthquake, Cyclone Nargis and the earthquake in Haiti — combined.
At least 160,000 square kilometres of land is under water — an area larger than more than half the countries of the world.
U.N. Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon
This is Khadija. Note her huge and haunted eyes. The wrinkled folds of skin hanging from her fragile little forearms. The veins and wrinkles that should never be visible in a child's face. This little being knows pain and fear that no child should ever have to know.
She's at the same hospital as Saira. Or, rather, she was. Again, I don't know whether Khadija's tiny body was strong enough to survive the ravages of starvation and disease.
Or maybe you'd like to meet this tiny pair of sisters. That's one-year-old Heleema and the left, and two-year-old Sughra on the right. Heleema, by the way, weighs less than eight pounds. Her sister Sughra, who at two should be toddling everywhere, weighs less than ten pounds. Both are too weak to walk, stand, or even crawl - assuming, of course, that they're still alive.
The girls' mother, Suhani, knows loss all too well. Nine months pregnant, she was working in the fields at the moment the Indus River came crashing down upon her. She grabbed Heleema under one arm, Sughra under the other, and ran. Eventually, the family arrived at a hot, filthy, pestilential refugee camp, where she delivered another little girl . . . who died four days later.
The military transported the extended family to the camp on the outskirts of Sukkur, where she said they typically receive one meal a day consisting of rice, vegetables or lentils. There is nothing for the babies, and the newborn simply was not strong enough to survive.
"They are getting bread. They don't have milk. She can eat rice," Bunglani says, pointing to Sughra, 2. "But the younger one cannot."
In the past day, Sughra has stopped eating altogether. She will not take rice or any other food. She just turns her head and shoves her mother's hand away.
The little one, Heleema, 1, cannot sit on her own without support, even though she should be getting ready to walk by now.
If you've never seen a truly starving child, it's hard to imagine the horror. Many of these children were malnourished long before the floodwaters came. Now they're dying.
Relief organizations and workers don't have enough resources to cope with the stark, crying need:
But doctors warn the real catastrophe is moving much slower than the murky water. About 105,000 kids younger than 5 are at risk of dying from severe acute malnutrition over the next six months, UNICEF estimates.
"You're seeing children who were probably very close to the brink of being malnourished, and the emergency has just pushed them over the edge," says Erin Boyd, a UNICEF emergency nutritionist working in southern Pakistan. "There's just not the capacity to treat this level of severe acute malnutrition."
I get the feeling that much of the world thinks that these children are starving simply because the floods washed away their families' homes and crops. If only it were that simple:
Many of the women are unable to produce breast milk because they are weak and ill themselves. Some are already pregnant again in an area where illiteracy is high and girls often marry at 12 or 13 and produce back-to-back babies for years to come. Death, especially among newborns, is expected here, where even before the floods a quarter of babies were born underweight.
According to the WHO, prior to the floods, between 30% and 35% of Pakistan's children exhibited a major symptom of chronic malnutrition: stunted growth. Now, the children arriving at the refugee camps and makeshift hospitals look like diminutive wizened elders, draping folds of scabbed, wrinkled, withered skin hanging loosely from their bones; hollow and haunted eyes, too large for their face, staring dull and unseeing; hair falling out, with what remains turning an unhealthy orange color; tiny skeletal bodies wracked with malaria, cholera, diarrhea, respiratory infection, skin infections, and other potentially-fatal diseases.
A PERSONAL REQUEST FROM AJI:
Help Pakistan! is a group dedicated to getting needed humanitarian support to flood-ravaged Pakistan, and to disseminating information pertaining to the floods to the Daily Kos community at large. Our goal is to get aid to the people who need it most.
If you have a negative comment pertaining to Pakistan, its people, its culture, or its relationship with the United States, please refrain from making it here. This is not the appropriate venue. If you wish to discuss those issues, please write your own diary. These diaries are explicitly dedicated to humanitarian relief.
If you would like to be a part of Help Pakistan!, please click the picture at the very bottom of this diary. We would love more volunteers to help us with the burden of posting a diary every day.
I mean it. I don't want to hear it. If you're tempted to say something about this being the fault of the Pakistani people, then you look into the eyes of Saira, Khadija, Heleema, and Sughra and tell them that it's their people's fault, and therefore you have no intention of easing their suffering. That even though you can spare $5, you're not going to help save their lives - because it's so much more important to stand on the "principle" of not helping people whose leaders may be wrong. So go on: Tell them that their lives are not worth saving. because I'm sure as hell not going to do it for you.
Their names are Khadija. Heleema. Sughra. Saira.
They are why we cannot forget.
These are our brothers and sisters, our mothers and fathers, our children and elders. But for the grace of Spirit, God, Allah, some other deity, or nothing but fate goes each of us. And someday, we just may be the refugees who need the world's help to survive the ravages of climate change.
So please, dig deep. Even $5 will help someone. And it may do more than just help - it may save a life.
Indeed, $5 will help save a life: It will buy one LifeStraw, ShelterBox's personal water purification system, which will last one person for a year.
PLEASE GIVE:
Note: Numerous NGOs are doing important work that may benefit Pakistan indirectly. However, the goal here is direct support, so this list includes only organizations that are actually on the ground in Pakistan. Use due diligence in donating to any unknown group. With those caveats, here are some ways that you can make a difference now:
AmeriCares: Medicines, medical supplies and equipment, nutritional support, etc.
Direct Relief International: Mobile health teams and medical supplies, including Pedialyte and antimicrobials.
Human Development Foundation: Relief/reconstruction, including clean water, supplies, disease prevention, sewage disposal, temporary school facilities.
Islamic Relief USA: $2 million Pakistan campaign, including on-ground needs assessments; aid distribution; general relief.
Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders): Medical care; clean water; supply kits, including mosquito netting, tarps, blankets, hygiene supplies, clothes.
Mercy Corps: Water supply kits, including tanks, purification tablets, filtration units; food supply kits, including rice, oil, staples; tool kits.
Oxfam International: Hot food; clean water; boats for search/rescue; installation of tanks and toilets; sanitation kits; hygiene supplies; cash-for-work programs.
Red Crescent: Emergency services; food packs; bulk rice; tents; other supplies; help with field operations, including shelter, water, sanitation, logistics, other relief.
Relief International: Distributing "Survival Kits," including dishes/utensils; water purification tablets; cooking stove; jerrycan; floor mat; mosquito netting; hygiene kits; etc.
ShelterBox: Distributing water carriers; filtration systems; ShelterBoxes, including 10-person partitioned weatherproof tents, insulated ground sheets, thermal blankets, mosquito netting, tool kits, stoves, dishes/utensils, water purification supplies, children's kits, etc.
UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees): Through partner NGOs, distributing tents, sheeting/tarps, cooking sets, buckets, sleeping mats, blankets, etc.
U.S. State Department Texting Program: Forwards $10 donations to UNHCR for distribution of supplies in two provinces; text "SWAT" to 50555.
Some of us at Daily Kos use a Google group to help organize for the crisis in Pakistan. Anyone who would like to get involved or get alerts when a new HELP PAKISTAN diary is posted, please join.
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