Children of the Indus Left to Hunger

Asem Mustafa Awan

Islamabad: Six children huddle under a makeshift shelter, their faces caught between innocence and despair, their futures uncertain. Behind them, the mighty Indus flows on, indifferent to the suffering it has unleashed.

This image is not an isolated scene; it is a stark reminder of how, year after year, Pakistan’s floods expose not only the power of nature but the frailty of the state’s promises to its people.

Natural disasters are one thing, but abandonment is another.

Families displaced by floodwaters now sit under tattered cloth and straw, waiting for food that does not come, for medicine that never arrives, for officials who never show up. People who once lived with dignity, feeding themselves from their land, are reduced to waiting in hunger, their pride swallowed with every passing day.

From sunrise to sunset, men, women, and children walk for miles in search of a few morsels often not even enough for one person. Relief camps, where they exist, cannot handle the sheer scale of loss.

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The irony is bitter. Banners and campaigns declare solidarity, yet on the ground, millions are left stranded. Pakistan’s food basket, devastated by floods, has left countless families without sustenance.

And at the top of this broken chain, profiteers thrive hoarding grain, inflating prices, and lining pockets while the poor starve. Every year, as waters recede, hunger rises, and exploitation follows. The cycle is unbroken, unpunished, and seemingly accepted as fate.

But fate is not to blame. Policy makers cannot hide behind the excuse of disaster. For decades, floods have returned, and for decades, the state has failed to protect its most vulnerable.

The promises of clean water, of basic food security, of shelter and dignity remain unfulfilled. The children under that makeshift tent are not only victims of a flood they are victims of systemic neglect.

Those who perished in the waters have left for their eternal abode. But those left behind — the children, the mothers, the elderly face an ordeal that is often worse than death. They live in hunger, in disease, and in hopelessness, while their plight is turned into slogans and photo-ops.

If Pakistan’s rulers cannot keep faith with its children, then what faith remains in the social contract itself? These six faces should haunt the conscience of anyone who claims leadership. Because to abandon the future of a nation is not just a failure of governance it is a betrayal of humanity itself.

The article is the writer’s opinion, it may or may not adhere to the organization’s editorial policy.

Asem Mustafa Awan has extensive reporting experience with leading national and international media organizations. He has also contributed to reference books such as the Alpine Journal and the American Alpine Journal, among other international publications.