Entire villages in Sindh’s Indus Delta are vanishing under the Arabian Sea as reduced Indus River’s freshwater flows and climate change batter the region, a visiting delegation of human rights defenders, journalists, and activists warned on Saturday.
Calling the situation a “slow-motion disaster,” they urged urgent government and international action to save the delta’s environment and its people.
The fact-finding visit, facilitated by the Sindh Human Rights Defenders Network (SHRDN), was led by Advocate Ali Palh and included prominent human rights activists such as Qazi Khizer, Vice Chairman Human Rights Commission of Pakistan; Saeed Baloch, General Secretary Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum; Chandan Malhi of the National Commission for Human Rights (NCHR); women and minority rights activist Cema Maheshwari; journalists Mansoor Mugheri, Shan Chudhry, Abdullah Solangi, and Mahesh Kumar; as well as members of the Karachi Bar Association, including Ms. Fakhar Imam Advocate, Advocate Safia, Hira Talpur, Abid Bozdar, Shahida Noor, Akhatr Hussain, Waqar Qazi, and Kamal Palari. Over the day, the group travelled to Keti Bander, Kharo Chhan, Baghan, Ghorabari, and remote delta villages, meeting growers, fisherfolk, women, and displaced families.
At Dandho Tar — where the Indus meets the arabian sea, the local leader Chacha Ghani Katyar explained how the sea had swallowed vast tracts of land after upstream dams choked off the delta’s lifeline: an annual release of 25 million acre-feet (MAF) of freshwater promised under the 1991 Water Accord. Temporary freshwater flows from recent floods, he said, were “a guest that will soon leave.”
In Yousif Katyar village, relatives of 10 fishermen held in Indian prisons for the past five years pleaded for their release. In a small fishing village deep in the Indus Delta, 55-year-old widow Masi Zulekha waits every day for news she fears may never come, the release of her four sons from Indian prisons.
“They went to earn a living and never came back,” she said, tears rolling down her face as she addressed a delegation of human rights defenders visiting Yousif Katyar village on Saturday. “I have no income, no resources. Every day is a struggle to feed their children.”Her sons — Nagu Ahmed, Hassan, G. Hussain, and A. Sattar — were among 10 fishermen from the village who, according to locals, were arrested by the Indian Navy five years ago while fishing in creeks that fall within Pakistan’s jurisdiction. Other detained fishermen include Aarab, Maqbool, Gul Mohummad Ronjho, Wahid, Ahsan, and Mustafa Shah.
