KHERPUR, Sep 5(ABC): A toddler has died of starvation in a Khairpur relief camp, where food distribution stopped five days ago, the family of the child told reporters.
Thousands of flood victims are waiting for relief aid across the Khairpur district and malnutrition may cause more deaths, reported on Tuesday.
Asiya, a two-year-old female child, was living in the Kot Diji relief camp with her family and she died of starvation, her family said protesting against the camp management, whom they held responsible for the death.
The relative of the child said they were from a family with respectable ancestral history, but the heavy rainfall and floods had taken away everything from them.
And now the camp management has stopped distributing food, they said.
The flood victims appealed to the prime minister, the Sindh chief minister, and the chief of army staff to supply food aid to relief camps.
The camp in Kot Diji was set up by the Sindh government.
Roadside camps
Large swathes of Sindh province remain under 2-4 feet of water. After villages were inundated, people traveled to highways – the only elevated places that remain dry across the province.
While authorities and NGOs have set up camps along highways, thousands of people are living on the roadside on their own, using their charpoys to escape direct sun heat.
Authorities and aid organizations have been focusing on the worst flood-hit districts of Kambar Shahdadkot and Daddu – located on the right bank of the River Indus.
Khairpur district remains largely neglected and not a single NGO has set up a relief camp in the region, says Shafiq Shar.