THARPARKAR: The toll of children dying for various reasons in Sindh’s Tharparker region continues to rise as six more children succumbed to malnutrition and water-borne diseases in the past 24 hours.
The Sindh health department said the deaths took place at Civil Hospital, Mithi with the six infants having passed away.
The recent death of six children has taken the death toll in Tharparker to 53 for this month and 479 for this year.
According to the health department, every year 1,500 children die due to malnutrition, infections and lack of proper medical facilities in the remote region.
A report released by the United Nation’s Children Fund in April stated that Pakistan is among countries with the highest infant mortality rates, with 22 infants dying before turning one month old.
Among these countries, eight are in Africa and two in Asia, including Afghanistan which is ranked third.
“Pakistan is the riskiest place to be born as measured by its newborn mortality rate,” the report stated. “A baby born in Pakistan is almost 50 times more likely to die during his or her first month than a baby born in Japan, Iceland and Singapore.”
On September 25, Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Parliamentarians leader and Provincial Local Government Minister Saeed Ghani had said that some media outlets are publishing and airing news about Tharparkar which are far from reality.
He said according to record, Tharparkar district has a far low infant mortality rate, 18/1000, than the rest of Pakistan, 62/1000, in 2017.
He further said that this year in Tharparkar district 208,247 families will be provided 50 kg wheat per family in the first phase of the distribution of wheat.
He also said that BISP had marked 62 thousand families for the provision of wheat and out of them, 52 thousand families were provided wheat the last time distribution took place. Saeed Ghani said that the Sindh government has established a high standard of transparency in the distribution of wheat in Tharparkar district.
Earlier, media reports had circulated claiming that the locals are charged Rs50 to Rs100 for a 50-kilogramme sack of wheat which is supposed to be provided for free.
Talking to the media, a local had said, “The food department staff is charging them money for their services of distributing wheat that the government said would be free of cost for the famine-hit region.”
The government had declared Tharparkar as the famine-hit district of Sindh, after which they announced that wheat would be distributed free of cost to families living there.
Subsequently, a centre was set up in the tehsil headquarters where families were asked to come with national identity cards of their heads to collect their sack of wheat.
Earlier, agents appointed by the government would distribute wheat sacks from door to door. However, this time, locals were asked to travel to the centre that is located at a distance from different tehsils of the district, causing them inconvenience.
The Sindh government had launched an emergency relief operation in the drought-hit Tharparker region to provide free-of-charge wheat to over 200,000 deserving families, Radio Pakistan had reported.
According to the report, each family would be provided with wheat bags of 50 kgs each.
The required number of gunny bags have been made available at designated distribution centres in Mithi, Kaloi, Lalamkot, Diplo, Nagarparker, Dahli and Chhachhro, the report added.
