Italiano

English

FROM ISLAMABAD – RAWALPINDI TO BALAKOT

17-22/12/05

Many trips, many situations of emergency, of poverty: for the war, for the conditions social-economic, for the seaquakes and now for the earthquakes. It seems yourself to always have seen everything, the more, but you always discover faces of poverty and destruction that seem ever more dramatic, even more distressing.

After a fast meeting with the Bishop of Islamabad, mons. Anthony Lobo, the presentation of the president of the association “ALL PAKISTAN MINORITIES ALLIACE” Mr. Bhatti Shahbaz and a frugal lunch with the friends “focolarini” that live in Rawalpindi, we depart in auto for the earthquakes zone, for the city of Balakot.

The guide that I bought defined this city: “ Balakot (928m.) it is more beautiful seen from far that from nearby. Few motives for interest for a standstill, however here you can ask about the superior part of the valley and to organize the moves.”

Balakot is a ghost city: only curtains, rubble and practically any standing residence. The curtains are in cloth, more proper to a summer camp that to the Pakistan climate, on the naked earth some carpets are stretched and some fire of turned on coal it hardly heats the most fortunate curtains, a lot of them don’t even have this. Drinkable water is insured from the trucks that supply the cisterns of the villages and the camps, running water remains a mirage. The baths remind us of our farms of the Venetian country, a box under the stars and even in proximity of the stable … who has some goats or cows is a fortunate and rich man.

We stop at the base camp of the “ALL PAKISTAN MINORITIES ALLIACE”, among the curtains school is being taught to the children, a brief standstill to distribute the uniforms, a lunch under a curtain and then we change the car, we have taken a jeep to visit some villages in the middle of the mountains. The road is dreadful: the earthquakes have left nothing intact: the cracks, the landslides, the ups and downs make a disconnected path that used to be a road. Bhatti Shahbaz tells us that there are a lot of roads still to clean with the bulldozers and in some villages you can only arrive on foot, or by horse or mule. We imagine the labour of Bhatti, and his 40 assistants, members of the association, needed to reach these zones by foot in the hours following the earthquake, since there was no other choice. The social-geographical context in which we move is very delicate and the mountains don’t distinguish confinements with nearer Afghanistan, these lands for their impervious nature, are burrow of terrorists, bandits and fundamentalists. The attacks are not rare, for plunder, also to the humanitarian associations, and the famous Karakorun way ( ancient street of the silk) is covered only during the day, escorted by the local police and often paying an expensive tax for the toll. The visit of two villages: all destroyed, nothing intact! People live under the curtains but the temperatures, that are bearable during the day, become decidedly icy in the night (the thermal difference between the day and the night can be also of 20 degrees). In the villages we find so many children, elderly, some of them still have the signs on the body of the earthquake, others are crying for their lost relatives, others their children, pain is palpable and when you cross their eyes you warn a desolating sense of impotence, they are waiting from us help in a short time.

We come back in the base camp, it is already night. In order to find a hotel we must move to Mansehara, a frugal supper ( bread, eggs, rice and tea) and ready to leave the following day.

 The programmed visit is for the region of the Kashmir in the city of Muzuffarabad. From the height, the impression is of a basin among the mountains, with a river that crosses in the middle, almost a tourist city. Then you can see the camp settlement and going down you can see the destruction that has struck the city. We go to a field helped by the associations “ALL PAKISTAN MINORITIES ALLIACE”, some covers are distributed, we visit two schools completely destroyed that have had almost 200 victims amongst the boys and girls (it was the 9 in the morning); the adjacent hospital is a spectral place.

The faces of the people still show the pain and the loss, but life continues even amidst distress, numerous difficulties, and even more extreme poverty.  There are two immediately striking aspects: in the first place many buildings (for example, a school, a hospital, and a stable) seem to have imploded, their structures collapsed in the force of the earthquake, their attics collapsed one on top of the other, leaving one to imagine the bodies still buried under the debris, as we saw very few excavators and other equipment removing the ruins; secondly, we could not understand the presence of the armed guards in the refugee camps, only later, as Bhatti and Mons. Lobo explained to us, the guards were protecting against possible raids aimed at kidnapping the children, especially the orphans, who would not be reclaimed.   If taken, they would be sold as slaves used for the most humble and heavy tasks, prostitution or organ trafficking, a healthy child valued at $100 U.S.

We begin our return trip for Islamabad, the reality of which was far beyond that which we could have imagined. Bhatti tells us that only a few hours after the earthquake Christian volunteers were already there helping all in need, including the Taliban and the fundamentalists.   Within a few days they had finished all of the resources, and all that remains is the closeness to the people who live in this precarious and painful situation. He lets us know that within the refuge camp the living conditions for the members of the association are the same as the refugees, that is that all of the resources are shared equally, without privilege for any.  He considers our presence as a sign of the Lord, who asks them (many of the volunteers have left their families, children and jobs behind), to carry on, not to give up.  There are three important needs: the construction of 300 modest homes on challenging building grounds in the mountains in order to allow them to better cope with the oncoming winter, and to give them tin roofs; the construction of two schools in two other villages to ensure that the children can continue to attend, which, in tents, would not be possible due to the  unsustainable cold; and a Jeep to reach otherwise inaccessible areas and to transport necessities. Here the illiteracy rate averages between 65 – 70%, the Christians, representing 3 – 4% of this population, are often marginalized, and not allowed to build places of worship, and destined to humbling and heavy work.  For this reason, Mons. Lobo believes in the importance of opening a college for raising the level of education for the Christians (the poor population).

In Islamabad, we meet Mons. Lobo, who explains to us the political situation, the problem of terrorism,  the security reasons connected to the kidnapping of the orphans.  For this reason some of them will be hosted in a home of the Diocesi of Rawalpindi.  He asks us to help him welcome these children. The situation is difficult, the world seems to have already forgotten in spite of the presence of several organizations of the United Nations and the NGOs, but there is still a lot of work to be done, and the winter could kill other innocent people. It is impossible to remain indifferent!