Pakistan Floods

The United Nations estimates 1,600 people have died in Pakistan's floods. “The water came at night” When will we go home?

The whole night was a night of unforetold doom for him as he was expecting that his house would collapse and the whole family would drown.

"Everything happened within a couple of minutes" “The water came at night and we didn’t have time to save our belongings, we had to chose whether to save our children and ourselves or our property and assets, so we choose to save our kids. We left everything and ran to save our lives.”

“We never knew this rain would make us homeless – we are literally left with nothing,”

“I have seen floods before. We had them in the 1970s. But I have never seen anything like this,” said Abdul Nabi, 63, a thin, bearded man who lost his harvest, mud home and all 10 of his buffalo.

“Maybe they swam, maybe they drowned. I don't know. But either way they are gone,” he said, looking as if he was about to cry

“It is very difficult to survive in the open. Our kids are asking when we will go home, and we don’t have an answer.”

“Nothing. I got nothing from the government. We saw these big vehicles with officials driving past, but they didn’t stop. They didn’t even give us a hand.”

"Kids were crying and people left everything that they had"

“There is nothing left. There is nothing to eat, no place to live, it’s just water, water. The people are helping each other. There isn’t any aid from the government; there isn’t any aid from anyone else. A few helicopters came; they gave us a few things to eat, but not enough for an entire household”.

“They brought their cameras and took photos so they could show the world they are giving aid. But there is no aid. Everyone is just surviving on the clothes on their backs. There is nothing left here.”

“There are thousands of people here, too many to count. Everyone is poor and destitute. There are little, tiny children who are starving here. There are women here, too. We only have God to help us. Where can we go?

There are no relatives who can take us. Wherever you go, anyone who had a house, money, furniture, everything has been destroyed. These people have no support.”

“In the water we lost all our things,” said Busar Jatoi, 100. The government is mother and father. It should do good, but we are here with our children wracked with hunger.”

“For two weeks now, my family has been sleeping under the open sky... I keep going back to what is left of our house, to clean it, or to find anything that is useable, but the rain keeps restarting.”

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