Mysterious disease killed 60 Baloch children in Bolan,

Mysterious disease killed 60 children in Bolan, People of Hub, Sakran, Gadani to be affected by water supply disconnection

on 2010/5/8 18:00:00 (112 reads)

ccupied Balochistan: according locals of Lundi Khosa region of district Kachi, Balochistan, a mysterious skin disease killed at least 60 children and several are still suffering from this painful disease. The notables of the region demanded of the government of Pakistan to send the test samples of these children abroad in order to find an effective treatment to eradicate the agonizing disease. Regional tribal elders Nasir Khosa and Manzoor Khosa told newsmen that the disease has been spreading in the area from last one year but no effective steps have been taken to cure the affected children. Most of the victims of this lethal disease are children aged between 1-3 years old. According to eye-witnesses and relatives of these children; “Soon after their birth small white spots start to appear on their skins which later turns into black ‘sort of’ wounds and begin itching. Then slowly the meet on their skins starts to decompose and worms will appear from their wounds”. Their desperate loved ones an in attempt to calm their children pour Gasoline (Lamp oil) on the wound in order to extract the worms from inside the wounds which relieves the children for a short period. It has also been revealed that the affected children start crying as soon as the sun arises; they don’t like sunshine and heat but they feel relaxed alone in dark rooms. The parents said that the children can’t eat any food due to the blisters on their tongues. Several children lost their eye-sight (become blind) because of this mysterious but lethal disease. The regional notables complain that due government lack of attention the disease is rapidly spreading in other adjourning areas. The elders said that few days ago a team of doctors have visited the area and tested the affected children. They admitted some of them, children, in BMC hospital but couple of days later the doctors in hospital declared the disease incurable and send the children back home. People and relatives of children in the region appealed through the media that the affected children must be send to foreign countries for better treatment if the doctors in Pakistan cannot help them. They said as soon as possible, a permanent cure /solution to this lethal disease must be found in order to save their next generation from this life-taking disease. Many people in Balochistan suspect that this disease might be an after effect of the nuclear blast in Balochistan’s Chagai region on 28 May 1998. However, it is not clear yet whether it is due to nuclear blasts or is just a “what is being called a mysterious disease”. Whatever the causes of this fatal disease may be, the government’s lack of interest and deliberate silence is nothing less than systematic genocide of Baloch children. People of Hub, Sakran, Gadani to be affected by water supply disconnection Monday, May 03, 2010 By M. Waqar Bhatti Karachi Thousands of people in Tehsil Hub, Balochistan, and the adjoining areas Gadani and Sakran have started worrying about water after the authorities concerned informed them that their water supply from the Hub Dam could be disconnected at any moment in the weeks to come. The population of all three areas — Hub city, Gadani and Sakran — are completely dependent on the Hub Dam for drinking and irrigation water. A 30-kilometre-long canal supplies over 66 million gallons of water every day to these areas; ironically, there is no filter plant to purify the water before it is supplied for drinking. The unpurified water, which is supplied to over a million people through an open canal, contains nearly all kinds of micro-organisms, as well as other contamination; and is a leading cause of various types of water-borne diseases in the area, interviews with the people of Hub and Sakran suggested. During a visit to Sakran and Hub, it was found that a majority of the residents drink water supplied from the Hub Dam without any purification; and despite knowing that it was unfit for human consumption, they had no choice but to continue using it. Irfan Brohi, a gastroenterologist who practices privately in Hub city, told The News that water from the Hub canal was not even fit for animals because basically it was being supplied primarily for irrigation. People, however, were being forced to use it for domestic purposes. “In summer, hundreds of people bathe every day in the canal, while livestock are also brought here,” he said. “I would say that such contaminated water should not be even used for irrigation because it would transfer contamination through plants.” Consumption of this water has resulted in diarrhoea, gastroenteritis and skin diseases becoming extremely common in the area, Dr Brohi said, adding that he always advises people to boil the water before drinking. “But you see, people here are very poor and use wood as fuel to cook meals. Boiling water or getting filtered water is a luxury that they cannot afford. It is the duty of the government to look into the problems of these people, and provide them with clean drinking water,” he added. Several farmers from Sakran who The News spoke to concurred with this view. They said that water purification was a luxury which lessened in priority in the face of warnings from authorities about closing the canal in the weeks to come due to scarcity of water in the Hub dam. “All we need is water, regardless of its cleanliness. If the the Hub canal is closed, we will have to spend hundreds of rupees daily to get water for domestic use as well as for our animals,” Muhammad Khan Somerlari, a local farmer, told The News. Somerlari also showed The News a pond of stagnant water near Sakran ,road where some animals were quenching their thirst. He added that this pond would become very precious if water supply from the Hub Canal were disconnected. Several such ponds and streams can be seen along the Hub canal; they came into existence due to seepage of water from the canal. In the drought season, however, these ponds become a source of water for the locals and their livestock. The Hub Dam administration says that water in the dam will only last two more months, and in the absence of adequate rainfall in the dam’s encatchment area, the supply of water to both, Balochistan and Karachi, will be affected. Some influential people, meanwhile, have built large water reservoirs on their land; these reservoirs are filled illegally with water from the Hub Canal, allegedly with the connivance of officials of the Balochistan Irrigation Department. These influential landlords use this water for their fields and also sell it to nearby villagers or poor peasants who work on their lands. There is, unfortunately, no tubewell system in their area due to poor electricity supply; while hand-pumps which fetch water from the underground aquifers are also rare. Some residents of the area said even though hundreds of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) were working to provide clean drinking water to people from the underdeveloped areas of Sindh and Balochistan, hardly any workers had been seen in their localities. “District Lasbella of Balochistan is a classic example of the government’s neglect. The people here lack the most basic facility of life — clean drinking water,” Dr Brohi maintained. http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=237205 http://www.balochwarna.com/modules/ne … rious+disease+Balochistan http://www.balochwarna.com/modules/articles/article.php?id=2022