08 Dec Pakistan: Children risk pneumonia as funding dries up
The sound of hammering can be heard all over flood-hit areas of Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber-Pakhtoonkh’wa province. In his village outside the town of Charsadda, Rehman Ahmed is trying to fix lengths of canvas and some pieces of wood to cover the large gaps in the roof of his three-room house. “The problem is I lack money to buy proper materials – but we just have to stop the cold coming through somehow,” he told IRIN.
Ahmed’s three children all have a hacking cough and fever, and he is concerned they may deteriorate. “The doctors say they need to be kept warm, but how can we do that when our house is still only partially repaired after the floods?”
The minimum temperature in Charsadda has dropped over the past week to about five degrees Celsius, and winds at night exacerbate the cold. However, in the province’s Swat district temperatures are already below freezing.
“We have been able to build only one room of our house. The men have to sleep on the verandah adjoining it and for a family of 12 to live like this is very uncomfortable,” said Saira Bibi, in the Kabal tehsil (administrative unit – sub-district) of Swat.