Dogs Of War

I have launched a new blog "Dogs of War". To see images of "Man's best friend" in times of man's greatest need click HERE

For Video from Sudan click HERE

1000 Words - When the Media Gets it Wrong - A Case Study

The following Article was written by Ragini Tharoor, editor of India Currents magazine, under the title "1000 Words". It can be found HERE

RAGINI THAROOR SRINIVASAN, Nov 01, 2007


In August, I was contacted by Operation Blessing International (OBI), a non-profit organization that coordinates humanitarian efforts around the world in disaster-stricken countries like Sudan, Kosovo, and Lebanon. And, apparently, India. Could India Currents, I was asked, help publicize OBI’s disaster relief work in the state of Bihar?

Hundreds of thousands were stranded because of monsoon flooding. Villagers were being attacked by vipers and cobras that had converged on high ground at an alarming rate. Many of the flood victims were so afraid of the snakes that they hardly ventured outdoors, choosing to relieve themselves on the ground just beyond their homes, ground wet with stagnant, leech-infested floodwater.

The picture painted by OBI’s Assistant Director, David Darg, was grim, one of a desperate population living in grossly unsanitary conditions. I was torn: Was this the image of India that we wanted to portray in our magazine? An image of poverty? Of misery?

My doubts were reinforced when I received photographs from OBI’s efforts in Bihar. Wide-eyed, naked babies in the arms of sari-clad mothers and grandmothers. Men and boys in tattered shorts wading through knee-deep floodwater. Representatives of OBI delivering relief kits, hygiene items, and emergency medical supplies. The final image was of Darg, handsome and smiling in a brown t-shirt, bending down to give a relief kit, stamped with the words “Operation Blessing India,” to a young Indian girl dressed in rags, her hair tied with a dirty orange ribbon.

I was dismayed. How could I publish a picture of a Caucasian American man—however well-intentioned, however much a world citizen and humanitarian—lowering himself to gift the poor brown families of India the relief they were not able to attain for themselves or with the assistance of local government?

I wrote to OBI with the request that they send me a new batch of photos, with Darg standing amongst the people he was working with as opposed to literally, visually above them. It was about the politics of the image, I said, not the quality of the work being done.

But even when I received new photos of Darg standing side-by-side with the villagers, I wasn’t satisfied. I couldn’t stop thinking about the ways that altruism can manifest itself as “al-tourism.” I did not for a second doubt the good work that OBI was doing, but missionary “good work” always comes with a politics of its own.

I didn’t run the story. Months later, it’s still on my mind. As I watch the news coverage of Southern California in flames, and as I recall the lack of government response to the devastation wracked by Hurricane Katrina and picture the thousands of evacuees cramped into the hot, filthy Louisiana Superdome, I know that humanitarian efforts—no matter where they come from, no matter how they “look”—do aid populations, bring peace, and enable the reconstruction of homes and lives. And that, notwithstanding a complicated politics, is also a blessing.

My Response

We originally contacted India Currents magazine knowing that they had a large readership amongst Indian's living in America. Our hope was to reach out to the Indian communities in America, let them know what is happening to their own people and appeal for funds. The reality of the situation was exactly as I painted it in my article, horrific. Tens of thousands of Indians in Bihar state were (and still are) suffering and in desperate need of external funding just to provide them with emergency relief to take them to a place of safety. Our ultimate goal was to raise funds to help those people.

Unfortunately politics and misunderstanding took precedent and the photograph of me handing a relief kit to a little girl was interpreted to mean something it isn't, that the West is greater than the East. Yes a picture is worth 1000 words but if those words are misinterpreted then the consequences can be dire. Instead of running the article and possibly generating funds to help the people of Bihar, the magazine held off. Apparently the fact that I was "above" the little girl painted a negative image. Didn't anyone stop to consider that I'm about 3 feet taller than her?

I would have happily gotten down on my knees and handed the relief kit up in a sign of utter humility if I had known that my pose would have had so much impact. But in defiance I want to state that the photograph depicts the situation perfectly. The West was coming to the rescue of the suffering population in Bihar. That's not to say that we are heroes or that we want to take credit, it's just how it was, the reality of the situation.

Magazine editors never like to publish stories of suffering, it looks bad for their advertisers. In this case the editor literally didn't want her readers to know the reality of the situation on the ground so she censored the truth and in doing possibly prevented funds from reaching the flood victims in Bihar.

In the article she refers to our work as "missionary good work". While OB is a Christian organization I feel it is important to state that we never proselytize the Gospel during our work. We go as humanitarians and do so because as Christians we feel it is necessary to help our neighbors and as humans we go because we feel compassion for the suffering. We have no hidden agenda, our goal is to help those in physical need. Yet another misunderstanding that could have cost the flood victims vital support.

In her support the editor did seem to grasp the magnitude of the situation, it is just so disappointing that she chose not to publish my article and instead use the space to write a confusing article based on her misconception of a simple photograph.

India is going through a period of intense financial development and is one of the globe’s rising stars. But behind the glitz there is still a very stark reality of unimaginable suffering. Poverty in India is rife. If India Currents magazine really wants to be true to its name they should acknowledge that 27.5% of the population “Currently” live well below the poverty line.

Nicaragua - Roof Tiles Like Flying Razors on the Night Felix Hit

"Independence day has been cancelled", a Nicaraguan aid worker sighed in a thick Caribbean accent.
The September 15 celebrations had been called off in Puerto Cabezas as a sign of respect to the victims of Hurricane Felix and to avoid disturbing the clean-up operation.
Traditionally the streets of the town would be lined with flags and celebrations of the day Central Americans became independent from the Spanish. Now they were lined with debris and residents still in shock from the category five storm.
Most of the 155,000 affected people in the Northern Atlantic Autonomous Region where the hurricane made landfall are indigenous Miskito Indians.
The majority of Miskitos depend on sustenance farming or fishing and live well below the poverty line.
Each day new stories of Felix's terror are emerging from the jungle and battered coastline while the death toll continues to creep higher in this remote part of the country.
I joined a group of aid workers for a helicopter assessment flight provided by the Nicaraguan military.
We circled the community of Sandy Bay, where almost every home had been destroyed.
The eye of the storm is said to have passed directly through the village, and it showed.
Uprooted palm trees were mangled with wrecked houses and fishing boats. The remnants of the school and church buildings lay strewn over a wide area.
We landed and walked into the centre of the village to talk with the residents. A crowd quickly gathered and my colleague struggled to translate as people frantically recounted their experiences in Miskito.
That night must have been horrific. Felix made landfall at 4:45am. It would have been very dark.
Families huddled in their stilted shacks until the walls and roof were blown away, then fled into the darkness and driving rain in search of cover.
Children became separated, seawater surged through the village and zinc roof tiles crisscrossed the area like razor blades in the 164mph (265 kph) winds.
A disheveled man was pushed to the front of the crowd. He was covered in cuts and held up his arms to reveal raw sores. He and three others had been found clinging to driftwood after they were washed away from the Miskito Cays.
This archipelago of tiny islands sits 40 miles (64 km) off the Nicaraguan coast and is primarily inhabited by fishermen.
We heard reports of the 20-foot storm surge engulfing these islands like a tsunami and washing away whole settlements.
Bodies are still being found on the beaches and 11 days after the storm two men were found drifting off the coast, alive but in serious condition.
Inland settlements in Felix's path did not fare much better. Wooden shacks were obliterated while the jungle trees around them were stripped of their leaves and snapped like matchsticks.
Crops were destroyed and as residents struggle to deal with the immediate needs of shelter, food and water the longer-term problem of having to restore livelihoods is looming on the horizon.
The greatest challenge for the people responding to this disaster has been inaccessibility.
The roads linking the Mosquito Coast with the capital, Managua, are terrible at the best of times. Hurricane Felix knocked out bridges and totally crippled the road network.
For days the only way to get aid in from Managua was by air.
Operation Blessing chartered a DC3 airplane and joined the air-bridge ferrying relief goods from Managua to Puerto Cabezas. The military formed human chains to load and unload the plane as we rushed to get aid to the victims.
Now that some of the roads have reopened we are working with the U.N. World Food Programme by providing trucks and drivers to haul hundreds of tons of food from Puerto Cabezas to remote communities in the interior.
After hearing reports of one convoy being looted by hungry villagers, the military has been providing security for each truck.
But still the drivers are nervous and reluctant to make the perilous journey over the muddy roads.
This has inevitably made each trip very expensive.
"It's costing us the same to truck food to some parts of Nicaragua as it does to do an air drop in Sudan," a WFP coordinator said.
At one distribution site I saw two dugout canoes being filled with sacks of food.
We spoke with the men, who came from a remote community four hours paddle upstream on the swollen Wawa River. When asked what the conditions were like in their village, one of the men replied in English: "No food, no house," before they slid their canoes back into the jungle.
Despite Hurricane Mitch thrashing the region in 1998, there are still no early warning or communication systems in place for most of the inhabitants of this region.
By the time many of the Moskitos realized what was happening, it was probably too late.
"Now I'm getting afraid when the rains come," one woman told us in Sandy Bay.
Shattered nerves will make living in the Atlantic hurricane "firing line" hard to bear for most residents. Now they face the long struggle of rebuilding their lives while under the constant threat of another Atlantic hurricane.

Mexico - Chasing Hurricane Dean

I flicked though the pages of the in-flight magazine to take my mind off the violent turbulence. A glossy image of turquoise water lapping a white sand beach had me transfixed. I have been on the road for weeks responding to a trail of disasters around the world. After sleepless nights and intense heat during the floods in India to the freezing cold and chaos of Peru's quake zone, nothing looked more inviting than the beaches of Mexico's Yucatan peninsula.
But the flight to Cancun that was usually packed with holidaymakers now only contained a handful of aid workers and journalists and we were not heading for "fun in the sun".
As Hurricane Dean approached, the world's news cameras were poised on Cancun's beaches. But like many hurricanes, Dean decided to take a sudden diversion. The storm, by then a category five hurricane, turned south and smashed into Quintana Roo state with ferocious 165mph (265 kph) winds and 20-feet (six-metre) storm swells. The city of Chetumal, two miles from the Belize border, took the full force of the hurricane and has become the nerve centre for humanitarian response to the region.
The luxury resorts of Cancun were spared and within two days tourists were back shopping in the high-end boutiques. The unfortunate irony is that had Dean hit the resort area of Northern Yucatan as predicted, the solidly built homes and hotels would have withstood the storm.
In stark contrast to the wealth of Cancun, Dean took a path through a much poorer area of the country and the results have been devastating to thousands of families.
When Hurricane Wilma, also rated category five, sat over Cancun for 63 hours in 2005 it caused horrendous damage. Fortunately for the people of Quintana Roo state, Dean swept through and lost power at a much faster rate than expected.
But the destruction is still widespread.
After the storm the city of Chetumal looked like a ravaged battleground. Trees were uprooted, power lines toppled and the water supply knocked out. I saw sheet metal roof panels wrapped around lampposts like ribbons.
It is the rural communities outside of Chetumal that suffered the most. The majority of villagers live in very humble, poorly built wooden homes. Hurricane Dean effortlessly smashed hundreds of these homes to the ground and peeled the roof off most of the rest.
Now residents sit in the tattered frames amongst the belongings that they were able salvage after the storm.
One woman, Maria, could hardly talk about the experience. We found her surveying the contents of her shack, sunlight streamed in through the open roof and illuminated her distressed face. "I was so afraid," she trembled as she described the moment her roof disappeared.
We are working with Mexico's civil protection unit to distribute thousands of roof tile kits in an effort to quickly restore shelter to the vulnerable population.
More rain is on the way and the waterproof tiles are being hammered onto wooden roof frames almost as soon as they are distributed. We are also providing the trucking and logistics needed to shift ton after ton of food and water from the central warehouse in Chetumal to the outlying villages where it is needed the most.
With the hectic activity of the response in Chetumal I had not been tracking Hurricane Dean's progress as it moved inland. The storm had lost much of its power when it made landfall and I was not expecting the telephone call I received. "Hidalgo is underwater," my boss said, with concern in his voice.
Dean was still on the loose over Mexico's interior and unleashing torrents of rain. I handed off the gulf response to our local coordinator and scrambled for Mexico's heartland.
Another turbulent flight and within hours I was in Pachuca, capitol of Hidalgo state and the location of Operation Blessings's Mexico head office.
Our coordinator briefed me with a worrying statistic: "We have just received 25 percent of the average annual rainfall in 26 hours," he said looking at me with a shocked expression. Our phones were ringing off the hook with flood reports coming in from all over the state but there was one name that we kept hearing - "Tulancingo".
Never have I seen water damage in an urban setting as dire as what I saw in Tulancingo on our arrival that evening. I have seen mud huts and wooden shacks washed away by floodwaters but not heavy stone buildings. In just six hours Tulancingo received eight months' worth of rain!
Dean had drawn up water during its path over the Caribbean and unleashed it in flash floods that inundated the city drainage system. Water and mud engulfed homes and businesses, submerged cars and destroyed classrooms. A small river that runs through the city center rose twenty feet above its normal level and swept the foundations out from under homes in its path.
Tulancingo has just been classed as a disaster zone by Mexico's federal government, and it is now estimated that hurricane Dean's rains affected 100,000 people in Hidalgo state.
We found one group of 120 families sheltering in animal pens at the city fairground.
Two days after the floods many families were still unable to return to their homes. Those that can gain access are met with scenes of desolation. As we wade through neighbourhoods delivering relief kits it is heart-wrenching to see poor families shoveling their ruined belongings into piles of festering mud.
Many people have lost everything and it will take many months for the city to recover. But before things get any better they could get worse as the putrid mud and stagnant water have the potential to fuel disease.
Hurricanes look so menacing in satellite images. The huge swirls of thick cloud with their cycloptic eye immediately suggest destruction on a massive scale.
We are captivated by these storms as they bear down on civilisation. At least, it seems, until the circular formation dissipates.
Once Dean had made landfall and the winds weakened, its view from space looked like any other cloud cover anywhere. The world turned its attention elsewhere thinking that Dean was old news.
But hurricane Dean was not going down without a fight and its destructive piece de resistance was the horrendous rain in Hidalgo.
The 2007 Atlantic hurricane season has only just begun. Let Dean be a warning to the region and the world - never underestimate the potential brutal power of a hurricane once it begins to weaken.

Peru Quake - Survivors Camp out on Cold Streets

First came the sound of thunder. Then the ground beneath us began to shift. We were rocked from side to side in our chairs, glasses toppled over, the wooden roof groaned and the sky lit up as power lines fused.
We jumped up and made for open ground when the shaking stopped. Our adrenaline surged, but we were expecting this to happen. It had been an aftershock to the massive 8.0 magnitude earthquake that rocked Peru's Ica province just two days earlier.
The tremor only lasted a few seconds but it was strong and made us nervous about sleeping in our three-storey brick hostel. But it was nothing compared to the quake that left 650 people dead and thousands injured and homeless.
For several minutes, the Nazca and South American tectonic plates ground together 25 miles below the towns of Pisco, Ica and Chincha, and the results have been devastating.
The quake shook with such a force that many of the reinforced concrete buildings in the three towns were reduced to rubble. The majority of local residents live in adobe-style mud brick homes; many of those bricks literally crumbled and turned into dust.
The devastation extends for miles beyond the epicentre and many rural towns and villages have been flattened.
With homes destroyed or damaged and with frequent aftershocks, thousands of people are living in the streets. In some cases belongings have been salvaged and uncannily set up next to the rubble to resemble the former interior.
COLD NIGHTS
It's winter in Peru and the nights are freezing cold. Those sleeping outside run the risk of illness.
Operation Blessing has been providing temporary shelter and blankets to thousands in an effort to keep them warm and out of the emergency clinics. But many have already fallen sick and, with hospitals destroyed, the clinics are struggling to treat injuries and disease.
In the towns, poor hygiene is quickly becoming a fear as toilets and water supplies have been destroyed. We are working with Peru's national civil defense institute (INDECI) to restore sanitation to Pisco by constructing latrines.
Pisco is awash with rescue teams desperately picking through the rubble looking for survivors.
On my flight to Lima I sat next to a K9 dog-team rescue worker from Spain. He told me they would work for eight days, typically the maximum amount of time anyone could survive. Now, four days since the quake, many teams are giving up hope of finding survivors.
"It's just too cold," said one British rescue worker. Some city blocks in Pisco are impenetrable mounds of debris. In many spots the sniffer dogs and workers can only wait for heavy machinery to reveal the dead.
"They will be picking out bodies for weeks," said one Portuguese rescue worker. Every hour, corpses are lined up in the town square where they await identification. Most rescue and aid workers are wearing masks to protect themselves not only from the dust but also the pungent smell of death that penetrates the air.
The road between Pisco and Chinca is perilous. A damaged bridge means that traffic is only able to pass one lane at a time. It takes hours to make the short journey.
Packs of youths have been preying on the cues of traffic, and we have seen aid trucks looted and windows smashed by the opportunists. Fortunately, the military presence has been bolstered and today passed incident-free.
AID POURS IN
In Chincha aid is beginning to pour in from agencies and other parts of Peru. The town's stadium has turned into a huge aid store full of water, coffins, clothes and food.
But the municipality is struggling to cope with the distribution of the goods. So we're moving in to provide transport and logistics.
Today a fleet of Operation Blessing-funded trucks and pickups have begun delivering supplies to the villages and rural areas surrounding Chincha and will continue to do so for days to come.
Many families are leaving the region to stay with relatives. Hoards of people can be found waiting to board buses, clinging to their most valuable possessions.
But this migration is actually making our job easier. We're finding that the thousands of families without the resources to leave are the ones that need assistance the most.
It will take years to reconstruct the region. In the town of Arequipa, a local resident described to me how the church had been destroyed and rebuilt three times due to earthquakes.
Now as the faithful residents prepare to reconstruct their church for a fourth time, they must wonder when the next quake will strike. These last few days have been nerve-wracking enough, I could not imagine spending a lifetime living on this fault line.
While writing this blog, another aftershock struck. I ran down two flights of stairs and into the street to join others searching for safety. The shaking lasted only for about 15 seconds but it was enough to shatter everyone's nerves a little more and send a warning to the quake victims of Ica province: it will be a cold night ahead.

India Dispatch - Snakes on a Floodplain

"Look out for landmines," shouted my Indian colleague as we stepped out of the boat at the village of Malitola. I had not heard of landmines being used in this part of India and quickly moved into the middle of the muddy path. As I did I heard laughter from my team members behind me.
"That's a landmine," one of them chortled, pointing to a pile of excrement on the path's edge.
Slightly relieved, I took note of the "landmine" and saw more and more as we entered the village. This was human excrement and it filled the air with a pungent stench.
I have never seen such a concentration of feces so close to village homes before and fear the implications.
I am in the northeastern state of Bihar working on the flood relief effort.
This part of the world is no stranger to flooding but for many in India this year has been the worst in memory.
Eighteen continuous days of monsoon rains drenched the region, the water flowing off the Himalayas through Nepal, into India and draining via Bangladesh.
The floods have claimed hundreds of lives and affected an estimated 50 million people in the three nations combined.
In Bihar, hundreds of thousands of people are still stranded by floodwater, as their villages have become islands. Food is scarce and now the fear of a medical catastrophe is looming over the region.
India now has two distinct faces, one of growth and wealth and one of extreme poverty. Bihar is far removed from the bustling IT economies of India's big cities and is one of the poorest states in the country.
Most people live a life of simple subsistence farming so this disaster will be a major setback and further widen the gap between the Bihar farmer and the Bangalore computer technician.
Operation Blessing is working with the Duncan Hospital in Rexaul, right on the Nepal border. Together we have formed relief teams and have been venturing out to stranded villages by boat to deliver relief kits containing food, essential hygiene items and emergency medical supplies.
Bihar is huge and very remote, as far as I know we are the only organisations serving East Champaran district, where 350,000 people have been affected by the floods.
Over the last few days it has been a rush to reach as many marooned villagers as possible. At first it was a simple task of loading boats with relief kits and sending teams out over a sea of floodwater.
But as each day passes the water level is dropping and navigation is becoming harder.
Yesterday we became grounded several times and we found ourselves having to push our boat through knee-deep, leech-infested, muddy floodwater.
In a few days the water will have receded to where boats are useless. The quagmire left behind will make reaching stranded communities impossible for several days.
We have been able to distribute thousands of relief kits but there are still hundreds of thousands of people trapped throughout the Bihar flood "archipelago" who have received nothing.
Every disaster has a unique set of problems that arise after the main event. Just recently in China we saw how a plague of rats fled rising floodwaters and terrorised villagers in Hunan.
Bihar is also being plagued, but here it is by snakes. The snakes are converging on the same high ground that the villagers inhabit and people are being bitten at an alarming rate.
Duncan hospital is receiving an average of two bite victims per day and those are people that are able to reach Rexaul!
The most common venomous snake is the krait, a member of the viper family. Its deadly bite contains haemotoxic venom that causes its victim to bleed to death.
And then there is the infamous cobra with its neurotoxic venom. The snakebites are claiming lives but not all snakes here are venomous.
I wonder if the psychological effect of the snakebite could become the biggest killer.
I am used to working in the developing world, where we place a great deal of emphasis on hygiene education. One of the most basic principles taught in any hygiene curriculum is to go to the toilet away from your home and water supply.
As I scanned Malitola village and its "landmines" on my first day I was shocked that the villagers seemed to be breaking every rule in the book.
When I enquired as to why the villagers seemed to have such a disregard for sanitation the answer I received put things into perspective.
"We're afraid of the snakes," one villager said in defence.
It seems that the villagers of Bihar fear the very visible threat of a snakebite over the invisible threat of becoming sick through poor hygiene.
Rather than venture out into the bushes they prefer to go to the toilet right outside their home.
Combined with the stagnant floodwater, it is no surprise that the United Nations is warning that Bihar is a ticking time bomb waiting for a huge explosion of disease.
For some places it is already too late.
In Malitola one in five people had acute diarrhoea and were complaining of abdominal pains. The same could be said for all of the villages we have reached, and Duncan hospital has already started treating cholera patients.
Knowing of each village's impending isolation as the waters recede, we have been leaving behind medical supplies such as oral rehydration salts, paracetamol and water purification tablets.
For the villagers in the flood zone the outlook is bleak. If they are not struck by cholera, then typhoid, malaria and a whole host of other diseases are waiting in the wings.
Failed crops and general substandard conditions make life difficult for Bihar's population at the best of times.
One doctor at Duncan hospital told me that even before this disaster they were treating an average of two attempted suicide poisonings per day.
Now many people have lost everything. This disaster has crushed families financially, physically and even spiritually.
For many Hindus the loss of their sacred cows will take the misery of this disaster to a level beyond the norm.
As soon as we have access we will be sending medical teams back into the villages but by then it could be too late for many people.

The worst is not over in flood-hit Pakistan

As I prepared to leave for Pakistan last week my friends in England joked: "Why go there when we have enough flooding to deal with here?"
But despite the devastating scenes in Britain each of them understood why I was departing for a similar disaster thousands of miles away. One after the other, floods in Asia are sweeping the continent and Pakistan has taken the brunt of one of the worst.
In the middle of June, Cyclone Yemyin began drawing up water from the Arabian Sea and headed straight for Pakistan. On June 23 the storm made landfall and released torrents of rain over Baluchistan and Sindh provinces for four days.
The resulting flooding has claimed the lives of 319 people with 224 still missing. Some 377,000 people have been displaced and a total of 80,000 houses were completely destroyed in Baluchistan and Sindh alone.
In total 2.5 million people have been impacted by this disaster.
I arrived in the flood zone to join a team led by our German partner agency, Humedica. Over the last month Operation Blessing and Humedica have been providing shelter kits to flood victims. With thousands left homeless, shelter is a priority need for the suffering population.
Scores of families are camping along roadsides under the scorching sun in temperatures approaching 50Celcius (122 Fahrenheit). In many areas the elevated roads are still the only land not submerged by floodwater.
During my first day on the ground I was shocked to walk down mile after mile of road flanked on either side by sick children sitting amongst the few belongings that their family were able to salvage as they fled. With the monsoon season fast approaching, a lack of shelter will only compound the misery.
If the intense heat and crippled road network are not making the relief effort hard enough, then there is the ever present threat of kidnap or violence from one of the many extremist groups that have succeeded in making Baluchistan one of the most dangerous places in the world.
I was discussing the relief effort with a curious shopkeeper when he mentioned the Korean hostages currently being held in Afghanistan. "Aren't you afraid?" he asked.
In an area that causes aid workers to cringe just at the mention of its name, it is hard not to be nervous at least. After the U.S. bombardment of the Tora Bora region of Afghanistan in 2001, it is thought that Osama Bin Laden may have fled across the border to hide in Baluchistan.
One thing is for sure, if Bin Laden is in Baluchistan, then Cyclone Yemyin left him soaking wet.
The first day of rain was so intense that it sent alarm bells ringing and hundreds of Pakistani Rangers began evacuating people from low lying areas.
This is not the first time that the region has seen massive flooding. In 1994 the area was so heavily inundated that the flood defense barrier close to the Baluchi /Sindh border was tested to its limit. This time, however, Cyclone Yemyin took the barrier beyond its limit.
The Pakistani Rangers have been providing security during our distributions and have been one of the most cooperative and helpful groups that I have ever had the pleasure of working with. One Major I spoke with was part of the evacuation operation. "We warned people that more water was coming," he said in angst.
The Rangers succeeded in getting thousands of people to higher ground and to towns out of harm's way. But they had no mandate to force villagers from their homes and during the final night of rain the floods breached the 12-foot defense barrier in over 40 places and hundreds of people and animals were swept away.
In places, the water has begun to recede and evidence of that disastrous night can be seen. Animal carcasses lie in pools of filthy water and fields where crops once grew are now ponds of mud strewn with the remains of farmers' homes.
Rice is the main crop grown in the region and the loss of this harvest will be devastating. But even worse is the destruction of the intricate network of irrigation channels and furrows that is so vital for rice production.
With so much work needed to resurrect the agricultural infrastructure, there are fears for the next harvest and beyond. It is clear that the worst is not over.
As hunger and sickness become prominent problems, we have secured a grant from the German government and are adding vital items to our shelter distributions: rice and milk powder for hunger, soap for hygiene and skin diseases and nets to protect against a surging plague of mosquitoes and malaria.
But the numbers of people still in need are staggering and there are fears that attention to this disaster is waning too soon. My Ranger friend estimates that it will take a further 30 days just for the waters to drain.
It seems the barrier designed to keep floods out is also quite effective at keeping water in. In some places the water reached a depth of 14 feet (3.7 metres); now over a month later, the water level in many places is still at six feet (1.8 metres).
I stood on the earthen barrier and looked out over the flood that stretched for as far as I could see. The wind picked up and sent small waves crashing. Had it not been for trees poking their tops out of the water I could have been on the shore of a great ocean.
Similar "oceans" have been forming all over Asia as the region goes through some of the worst weather since records began. Unlike the earthquake of 2005, where humanitarian agency attention was focused on helping Pakistan recover, the victims of Pakistan's floods are having to share the spotlight with their flooded neighbours throughout the continent.
The heat does not faze me and I feel safe under the protection of the Rangers but I am afraid that the floodwaters of Asia (and even England) have diluted international response to each individual flood disaster. The Pakistan flood victims need more help than they are receiving. This disaster is far from over.

China region starts from scratch after devastating quake

On the morning of 3 June a violent earthquake struck the Pu'er region of southwestern China. The quake measured 6.4 on the Richter scale and over 90 percent of all homes and buildings in the region were badly damaged or destroyed in an instant.
To date, 44,000 families have lost their homes and a further 58,000 will need to carry out major repairs before returning home. Amazingly with an earthquake of this magnitude, only three people were killed and a further 28 seriously injured.
The low casualty count is very fortunate and attributed to the quake striking in daylight hours. But the region is bracing for difficult times ahead. For a population whose annual average income is $80 dollars the economic loss will be devastating.
Since that first quake there have been over 30,000 recorded aftershocks, 30 of those scoring above 3 on the Richter scale. With so much seismic activity no one is taking any chances and most of the 190,000 local residents are choosing to sleep in tents despite heavy rainfall.
Our organisation was invited to assist in the relief operation by the Chinese government's development agency, The China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation (CFPA). After taking an assessment walk around Ning'er city with a team from the CFPA, I could understand why so many people are taking the tent option.
Most of the buildings that "survived" the first quake look ominously unstable with huge cracks running through walls and windows smashed. The streets are strewn with rubble like a scene form a war zone and everyone is nervously waiting for the next strike.
Having heard very little in the international press on the earthquake I didn't really know what to expect on arriving in Ning'er and I had no idea that the level of destruction would be as high as it is. But I also didn't expect the government response to be as comprehensive as it is.
Of the 44,000 displaced families I haven't seen one without a tent. There are medical facilities offering free treatment and sufficient water and sanitation services have been provided. Construction teams have already moved in to start repairing the 5,685 km (3,530 miles) of roads that were damaged and the 109 schools that were destroyed. It's quite impressive.
I was told by a local volunteer that up until only last year the annual disaster death toll was a closely kept state secret. In the past any details concerning disasters and disaster relief were seen in an almost shameful light. Now the government is encouraging community teamwork and more international assistance.
Operation Blessing is working with the CFPA to distribute essential non-food items, clothing and high-nutrition, vitamin-rich feeding supplement for children. For families that lost everything this service is vital.
The government estimates that the damage totals around 2.9 billion yuan ($380 million), a mind boggling amount in an extremely poor region that is famous for its tea production. The CFPA is worried because after years of slow but steady economic growth, the earthquake has effectively reset the counter and one of China's poorest regions will need to start from scratch.
It's agonising to walk amongst the villages that surround Ning'er and see mud brick houses razed to the ground. Some villagers are still picking through the mud, looking for lost possessions.
This is a place where insurance doesn't exist and many people are still coming to terms with the fact that years of hard work and investment were wiped out in a matter of seconds.
Once the earth finally stops shaking, people will start rebuilding their homes. But where the bulk of the revenue for rebuilding will come from still isn't known and there is a long road ahead for the victims.

Mozambique dispatch: A White Flag as Waters Rise

This was a "dirty" blog written quickly from the flood zone. For 30 minutes I was alone with the villagers as I waited for the chopper to return with more supplies, it was one of the most incredible experiences of my life.

David Darg is an aid worker with U.S. humanitarian organisation Operation Blessing International, which is working with charity partners Humedica and Mercy Air to reach communities stranded by rising waters in the Zambezi flood basin in Mozambique.
So far we have located and served three communities, each one containing over 1,000 Mozambicans seeking refuge from the floods. As the water approached, the people ran to higher ground and became trapped on all sides. Consequently they have no food, adequate shelter or access to clean water.
Since identifying them we have been ferrying a constant supply of food and relief items to these communities by helicopter. With their homes destroyed, the people are living in grass huts, which are great for keeping the sun out but not the rain. Yesterday and today we have been dropping plastic sheeting as fast as we can in anticipation of Cyclone Favio. It's frightening to think that the people we are now serving could be wiped out if the cyclone brings too much rain.
We are flying a EuroCopter with a 450-kg payload and a Bell Jet-Ranger is on the way so as soon as the storm passes we can get right in to the hardest hit areas with two choppers. The International Red Cross and World Food Programme are supplying us with all the relief goods we can shift as we are one of only three helicopters on the ground.
These "islands" can only be accessed by small choppers like ours and presently evacuation isn't an option for the people. On almost every flight we take we are discovering new pockets of people trapped by the floods. As we fly over mile after mile of swollen rivers and swamps where crops were growing just weeks ago it is chilling to think of how many more people are stranded in this vast area.
Many of the inhabitants of the flood region made it to safety and are being cared for in camps by NGOs. But for thousands more this crisis is getting worse. We are targeting these emergency cases at maximum capacity and there is no doubt that we are saving many lives. Our prayer is that the lives we are saving today are not destroyed over the coming days by more rain.
We discovered the community Canga by accident during an assessment flight on Sunday. We had been searching for homes underwater and trapped individuals and never expected to find 1,200 people surrounded and desperate. Our pilot spotted a white flag flying from a tall wooden pole. We hovered to take a closer look and saw a red cross on the flag. The people were pointing frantically as if to say they needed medical attention.
When we returned in the afternoon we were told that because of lack of food three children had died the previous day. We immediately returned to deliver food provided by the World Food Programme and yesterday dropped a team of three doctors to tend to the urgent health needs of the community.
Landing on the first food drop was an amazing experience. The people were singing and cheering, knowing that someone had finally come to rescue them. Yesterday we took the head of the International Red Cross emergency response team, Alexandre Claudon de Vernisy, on an assessment to Canga. Alexander was amazed to learn that a local Red Cross representative was amongst those stranded on the "island" and it was he who had erected the flag.
The representative told us: "I knew that if I put up a flag you would come to save us". It's an amazing story and we hope it will have a happy ending. We are prepared for the worst.

Somali Dispatch - Delivering Relief in a Lawless Land

"The hyenas in Kenya are quite shy actually," said Cheik our driver as he negotiated around a crater in the red dirt road. "Hyenas across the border are different though." He changed his tone. "They kill people."
Cheik went on to explain how hyenas across the border had developed a taste for human flesh after feasting on an abundance of dead bodies left lying around during years of conflict. It was a simple yet chilling insight into the drastic difference between the relative calm of Kenya and the part of the world towards which we were now heading, the Gedo region of Somalia.
It was to be my first visit to Somalia and while no stranger to East African disorder having spent time working in Darfur last year, I was surprisingly nervous knowing Somalia's reputation for turmoil.
For several months we have been operating a medical clinic in the El Waak district in cooperation with our partner agency, Humedica. My mission on this particular trip was to assist in the coordination of the next phase of our project: the distribution of relief goods to the inhabitants and ever-increasing number of internally displaced people arriving in El Waak.
Like others in nearby Sudan, many of the internally displaced people of Somalia have fled for their lives from violence. They have experienced the same terrors, loss, fear and despair and have migrated in search of security and food. However, unlike Sudan, there are no foreign-run camps where Somali IDPs can seek refuge.
The insecurity of Somalia is so bad that it even makes working in Darfur, where aid agencies can barely function due to security threats, seem like a breeze. The refugees in Darfur are, on the most part, provided for by foreign aid and have access to food, water, shelter and shaky but nevertheless apparent security. Somali refugees are at the mercy of warlords, militia and clansmen as desperate as themselves.
The recent Ethiopian invasion of Somalia and subsequent movement across the border of Islamic militia forced the Kenyan government to close the frontier and in doing so they inadvertently cut off humanitarian access to the most severely affected area, Southern Somalia. If life for Somalis was not hard enough already, severe flooding over the last few months has caused a wave of mosquitoes, bringing with them deadly malaria. To add to the suffering, a recent outbreak of Rift Valley Fever, an incurable disease that causes victims to bleed to death, is ravaging the region.
With the border closed and insect borne disease spreading quickly it took some hard negotiating to get access to El Waak. We were eventually granted "special permission" and headed towards the Kenyan-Somali frontier with a payload of thousands of mosquito nets.
There was no border crossing, no fence, not even a line in the sand. Only our GPS unit could tell us when we had entered the land without rule. It didn't take long for us to come across our first sign of civilisation - and what a shock it was. Out of a crumbling, roofless building men toting machine guns poured out to block our path.
Having grown up in the Middle East and worked in war zones for several years now, I was used to seeing men with guns. This time it was different. As they surrounded our vehicle I noticed that our driver was whispering nervously to our Kenyan coordinator and out the window I caught a glimpse of a hand grenade hanging from the belt of a teenaged gunmen.
As the adrenaline surged I was gripped by the thought that these men could easily kill us for our valuables and never be hunted for, let alone caught. I grew even more nervous when the men began to climb on board the vehicle but as we began to drive on again, gunmen in tow, it was explained to us that they were our security detail and were there for our protection. I was very slightly relieved.
Through a cloud of dust the outlines of our clinic became visible and as we pulled into the compound we passed lines of Somali women and children who had been eagerly waiting our arrival. Our "security" team jumped off the truck and took up position around the perimeter wall, each one fulfilling the stereotype required - from the sunglasses and cigarettes to the AK47s held Rambo-style across their chests. In fact, even the landscape and people could have been seen as a cliched image of African suffering.
In amongst the initial chaos of our arrival I was able to get a better view of the women and children. Immensely different from their Kenyan neighbors, their colorful clothing couldn't hide the desolate stares they gave. One elderly woman in particular caught my eye. From behind her headscarf peered two bloodshot, sorrowful eyes. One could only imagine the horrors and anguish that those eyes have seen.
As I circled the clinic, sweating in the intense heat, I saw El Waak in all its pain. A place that once had life was now barren and hostile; schools lay in ruins and the wells only held dust. Like many towns in the old American Wild West, which were ruled by guns and later became ghost towns, El Waak is a ghost town but the gunmen have remained.
There are very few places on Earth that have no system of governance and no written law. Although Somalia is one of these places it was interesting to learn of the alternative they had in place. As in ancient times, the people here exist in clans and inter-clan disputes are often settled through battle. Despite the hardships, within each clan exists a system of welfare whereby the people look after each other the best they can.
Two major clans live side-by-side in El Waak and many of the IDPs are distant relatives who have come to their families in search of shelter and protection. There is often friction between the clans and each has a keen interest in keeping the other "in check". This, as it turned out, was very helpful when identifying recipients for humanitarian aid. Clan leaders regulated the other clan's decisions as to who had access to aid, giving priority to the IDPs, identified as the most desperate faction of the village.
And so in the shadow of machineguns, through the shouts of the clan leaders straining to keep control and under the intense sun, we began distributing mosquito nets to the people. A team of educators was on hand to explain the importance and method of using the nets. Every once in a while one of the women would smile as she received one.
Something as simple as a mosquito net can save a life. As we drove back towards Kenya I hoped we had saved thousands of lives that day. Later assessments will tell. We dropped off our gunmen guards, who by that time had become friendly with us, and crossed back into a land of laws.
The border remains closed and we have stockpiled a huge amount of relief goods in Kenya that we are trying to get to El Waak as soon as possible. If the recent war does bring stability then it can only be a good thing because whatever happens, it would be hard for things to get any worse.