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The floods in Pakistan, caused several weeks ago by heavy rains in the mountains of northern Pakistan, have killed more than 1,600 people and affected about 20 million people. Ten days ago, BBC correspondent Jill McGivering told us about a baby girl called Samina. She’d been born a few days earlier on the roadside after her parents fled the floods. At the time, Samina’s chances of survival seemed low – but now she and her family have moved into a relief camp and are getting aid. Jill went back to Sukkur in Sindh Province to see how the family is faring now. Download MP3
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MARCO WERMAN: The BBC’s Jill McGivering has been covering the floods in Pakistan. Last week we spoke to her after she’d visited the flood-ravaged region of Sukkur, to the north of Thul. There, she encountered a woman by the side of the road.
JILL MCGIVERING: She has no shelter. She was just sitting on a straw mat that someone had given her, under a tree. And she gave birth five days before I met her, to a little girl. That little girl, when I saw her on Day Five – well, she wasn’t taking breast milk, so basically she was getting no nourishment at all.
WERMAN: The prospects for the baby, Samina, seemed grim then. But now she and her family have moved into a relief camp and are getting aid. Jill McGivering has just been back to Sukkur to see how the family is faring, and sent us this report.
MCGIVERING: The last time I saw baby Samina and her mum, they were just living rough by the roadside, and I was quite dubious about Samina’s chances of survival. I’ve come back now ten days later, and most of the people who had been there by the road have been moved into proper camps. I understand that Samina and her family have also got a tent now inside one of these camps, and I’m walking through it trying to find them. Tent #59. I’ve found them. Samina’s mother looks much more happy than she was before. There was a big smile when she saw us coming. And there’s Samina. She’s still tiny. She’s in the shade now, though, inside the tent. Her head is dressed in some cotton wool, still in the same saucer they were using before. But instead of lying on the hard ground, she is lying on some beautifully embroidered cushions. And she’s wriggling, stretching and yawning and wriggling, as though she has got some life in her.
‘Ah, hello.’
Ah. This is Samina’s father. He wasn’t here before; he was having some medical treatment.
SAMINA’S FATHER: SPEAKING URDU
MCGIVERING: Samina’s father, [PH] Grocan, is saying that he’s been in the hospital for the last few days. He says he’s had a very bad fever, and he puts it down to all the shock and trauma they’ve gone through – losing the house; losing their land. And he says that their father-in-law and brother-in-law are still unaccounted for. They don’t know where they are.
‘And how is Samina?’
SAMINA’S FATHER: SPEAKING URDU
YOUNG BOY: SPEAKING URDU
MCGIVERING: They say Samina is getting some breast milk but she’s not feeding properly. And they’re also quite concerned – she has quite a nasty skin infection. In order to get treatment for that, they have to pay when they go to the doctor, they say, and they just don’t have the money to do that.
‘What is the situation here in the camp? Are things better now than they were before, on the roadside?’
SAMINA’S FATHER: SPEAKING URDU
MCGIVERING: They say they are getting basic food and water here, although nothing that’s suitable for the baby. But they’re also saying, ‘We’re not happy here. We want to go home.’
‘I understand you’ve tried to go home.’
SAMINA’S FATHER: SPEAKING URDU
MCGIVERING: He says that he tried to go home a few days ago to try and see what was left, but he couldn’t reach it. He got part of the way and then the roads were waterlogged; there’s still a lot of water there. Vehicles couldn’t get through and he had to give up and come back to the camp.
‘What do you think will be the biggest problems for you now, in the future?’
SAMINA’S FATHER: SPEAKING URDU
MCGIVERING: He’s saying that they’ll stay here for another ten days, and then they really want to move back to the area where their house was. Their own house has been destroyed, but some of their relatives’ houses they think are still standing, so perhaps they can stay there while they start to rebuild the house.
Then I asked Samina’s mother, ‘What are your concerns about Samina, her health and her future?’
SAMINA’S MOTHER: SPEAKING URDU
MCGIVERING: She’s saying that she’s very worried about Samina. She still has this skin rash and she’s been having a fever recently because it’s so hot here. There’s no electricity, so there’s no electric fan. And Samina’s mom also isn’t feeling very well. She says the food in the camp that they’re given is very spicy and she can’t tolerate it. She still doesn’t feel properly better after giving birth by the roadside only a couple of weeks ago.
For Samina and her family, the immediate crisis is now over. They have shelter and food and water. But like millions of others in this country, they only rent their land. And the crops on which their income depends have been washed away. Their future is still very uncertain.
WERMAN: The BBC’s Jill McGivering in Sukkur, Southern Pakistan. You can read Jill’s online story and see a picture of baby Samina at theworld.org.
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