“Nothing is left. Everything is destroyed" - Muhibullah, 40, told AFP, sitting on the debris of his home at Azakhel refugee camp. Originally a giant tent city for Afghans, the camp morphed into a permanent village. Today, the settlement lies in ruins close to the Grand Trunk Road heading to Peshawar.
Muhibullah, a teacher in a seminary, who migrated from Afghanistan at the time of the Soviet occupation, has moved his five boys and five girls into a tent. Wearing wet clothes and a traditional white cap, he bundled bed sheets, cushions, quilts and pillows to one side and tried to dry them out.
Broken beds, stools and other furniture were visible under the debris of Muhibullah’s house while a ceiling fan full of mud and dirt lay on one side. The UN refugee agency said that Azakhel accommodated around 6,000 Afghan families but the villagers who lost everything put the number at 11,000.
UNHCR spokeswoman Billi Bierling said 1.5 million of Pakistan’s 1.7 million Afghan refugees live in flood-affected areas, and that about 12,000 dwellings had been destroyed. “Azakhel village is completely destroyed. We need more help. We need more air lifts, we need more material,” she said. All around, parents and children were busy rescuing their belongings from the filthy water. UNHCR shelter coordinator Werner Schellenberg told AFP it would take at least two months to clear away the rubble. afp
