Muzaffargarh: The sleepy little district of Muzaffargarh is buzzing with beggars and givers. In the past two weeks, an outpouring of aid being flown into this district has been heartening for an outsider to observe.
It is chaotic, and the chaos appears to be never-ending.
Yet the truckloads of wheat flour, sugar, cooking oil and shelter materials have failed to meet the community's needs.
The Muzaffargarh government college, closed for an extended summer vacation till mid-September, is housing 300 people in its hostel and the rest of the campus is serving as a depot for helicopters delivering basic rations and shelter for the stranded villagers.
At sunrise, many poor residents in the underdeveloped district gather at the blue college gate, each one pretending to have been affected by the floods. An average of between 300 and 400 men and women wait at the gates from dawn to dusk in the hope of receiving a bag of flour, chickpeas or a carton of biscuits.
Parasites
Mahmoud Khan, an elderly villager from Sanawan town, said: "These local people are like parasites because they are stealing our food and selling it in the market".
"A healthy, young man snatched it from me and escaped from the gate," he said, with his eyes staring at a parked military truck.
Tufail Masoud, who runs a grocery store in the city, said: "I was shocked to see these locals managing to get flour bags and offering me to buy at 10 per cent lower price".
Like Masoud, most retailers refuse to buy from an unknown seller. But with food insecurity all around, flood victims such as Abdul Malek buy the food anyway for their starving children.
Fisticuffs have become a regular sight where relief goods are distributed. Women become furious and aggressive as men exploit their obvious advantages over them.
