Swallowed by the sea, Pakistan’s Indus delta now threatened by canals
Al Jazeera
Residents say construction of six new canals over Indus River will turn more lands barren and prone to be lost to sea.
Thatta, Pakistan – On a sunny afternoon at Dando Jetty, a small fishing village in Pakistan’s sprawling Indus Delta, a boat is being unloaded and another is about to leave for the Arabian Sea.
The melodious voice of Sindhi folk singer Fouzia Soomro rises from a loudspeaker playing on a nearby parked boat.
About 130km (81 miles) from Pakistan’s largest city of Karachi, Dando Jetty sits on the bank of Khobar Creek, one of the two surviving creeks of the Indus River in Thatta, a coastal district in the eastern Sindh province.
“There should be freshwater in this creek, flowing into the sea,” Zahid Sakani tells Al Jazeera as he embarks on a boat to visit his ancestral village, Haji Qadir Bux Sakani, in Kharo Chan, a sub-district of Thatta, three hours away. “Instead, it’s seawater.”
Six years ago, Sakani, 45, used to be a farmer. But his land, along with the rest of Haji Qadir Bux Sakani village, was swallowed by the sea, forcing him to migrate to Baghan, 15km (nine miles) from Dando Jetty, and turn to tailoring for survival.
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