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Caribbean Scientist Warns of Climate Change Disaster
Coastal erosion exposes columns for lights leading to the runway of Vance Amory International Airport in Nevis. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS
The Caribbean does not have the luxury of time for decisive action on climate change and global warming. In fact, it is on the brink of calamity, according to a prominent scientist.
Conrad Douglas, a Jamaican scientist who has published over 350 reports on environmental management and related matters, has warned that “urgent action at all levels [is] required now”, cautioning the region against complacency in dealing with climate change.
Noting that earlier models forecast that an atmosphere of 350 parts per million (PPM) of carbon dioxide would place the planet at a catastrophic tipping point for climate change, Douglas cited new information which put the new tipping point at 450 PPM.
“There are 445 million PPM of carbon dioxide, which is a mere five PPM of carbon dioxide away from the…limit that was projected for catastrophic global tipping points,” he told IPS.
With the projected loading rate at 2.5 PPM per year, Douglas said that within two years, the earth would reach a point where even more catastrophic events would wreak havoc on the planet, its societies and its economies.
“We’ve gotten to a juncture at which the entire planet is facing a precarious situation,” Douglas said. “We are heading towards a dangerous place on planet Earth.”
“Potentially irreversible consequences”
Last year was the warmest in recent history, including the highest temperatures since temperatures began to be recorded in 1895."We are heading towards a dangerous place on planet Earth."
-- Dr. Conrad Douglas
“We know about Hurricane Sandy…and the destruction which it caused in our region and the eastern seaboard of the United States,” Douglas said, noting that parts of the United States and the Caribbean are still recovering from that storm.
Douglas’ colleague, John Crowley, said that the planet’s nitrogen cycle had been severely thrown out of balance because of the massive overuse of inorganic fertilisers.
“That, according to the specialists, is having catastrophic and potentially irreversible consequences that require a major rethink of agricultural systems, including but not limited to fertiliser use,” he told IPS.
Both scientists are among dozens who gathered here from May 15 to 16 for a UNESCO-sponsored sub-regional meeting on environmental policy formulation and planning in the Caribbean region.
“It was clear already in 2011 when we [first took stock of] these issues that the knowledge about climate change in the Caribbean is insufficient and insufficiently connected to the real dynamics of Caribbean societies,” said Crowley, a UNESCO representative.
In 2009, a group of Jamaican artists launched a national public education campaign on climate change. It was part of a project implemented by Panos Caribbean, a regional organisation that helps journalists cover sustainable development issues, and Jamaica’s National Environment Education Committee (NEEC).
The artists produced a package of information designed to educate the Jamaican public. It consisted of a theme song titled “Global Warning”, a series of public service announcements, a mini album of songs on climate change, and a music video for the theme song.
A global issue
Even as deliberations continue here today, the general assembly of the United Nations in New York is meeting on sustainable development and climate change.
“I think we have finally awakened to the urgency of the situation, that we have tested and exceeded the globe’s capacity for absorbing and assimilating the pollutants that we make and discharge,” Douglas said.
“What we need now is nothing less than a Manhattan type project to rescue the planet.”
Marcus Natta, senior project analyst in the Ministry of Sustainable Development in St. Kitts, told IPS the meeting was very timely.
“What is important about this particular conference is that we are focused on action. I think unlike many other meetings, if we could truly achieve the action part after the planning and get the implementation, then we would have really achieved success,” he said.
The tiny island of Nevis is described as one of the few remaining unspoiled touches of paradise and one of the little-known wonders of the Caribbean. Douglas hoped that actions taken at the meeting would help preserve it as such.
“We hope that in the context of what faces us today – the phenomenon of climate change – that its beauty and charm will be preserved long into the future as we take wise and timely action to protect the habitat of mankind and all living creatures,” he urged his colleagues.
“This we must strive to do as we protect ourselves from ourselves. It’s our attitudes and values, our failure to change our behaviour that has led us to this critical point,” he warned, adding that the current path mankind is treading “threatens at the very least to plunge us into a perpetual cycle of poverty and misery”.
No Sweet Consolation for Women Diabetics
The disease itself may not discriminate on the basis of gender, but when it comes to healthcare for patients with diabetes, women in India find themselves at a disadvantage compared to men.
This was the conclusion of the study, ‘Impact of Gender on Care of Type 2 Diabetes in Varkala, Kerala’, which analysed gender roles, norms and values in a household and found women patients to be more vulnerable.
Women in India face disadvantages when it comes to diabetes. Credit: K.S. Harikrishnan/IPS
And this vulnerability influences all phases of diabetic care, according to the paper by Dr Mini P. Mani at the Achutha Menon Centre for Health Science Studies (AMCHSS) in Thiruvananthapuram, the capital of the southern Indian state of Kerala.
Even when they themselves suffer from diabetes, women cannot abandon the ‘caretaker role’ in the family and have to continue to prioritise the health of other family members above their own, the study found. Further, inequitable access to resources prevents early diagnosis of the disease in women.
Women pay more attention to the health of the men and children in the family, leaving them with less time to devote to their own wellbeing, said Rosy Raphy, who teaches at a school in Munambam, near the central Kerala town of Kochi.
“As someone who has lived with diabetes for 26 years,” Raphy told IPS, “I can say that I was not aware of the disease and did not take due care because I was preoccupied with matters of the family. As a result, my case got aggravated.”
Of particular concern to women and gynaecologists in the country is Gestational Diabetes Mellitus (GDM), a form of the disease that affects pregnant women.
The incidence of GDM has grown fourfold in the last 10 years, according to Dr B. Rajkumar, a doctor of Indian Systems of Medicine at the Keezhariyoor Government Ayurveda Dispensary in the state’s northern coastal district of Kozhikode.
“Earlier, pregnant women would engage in physical activity while doing housework. Today, the lifestyle of women has changed. Lack of exercise affects the body. And obesity, too, is a cause of gestational diabetes,” he said.
One in five pregnant women in Ahmedabad in the western Indian state of Gujarat were found to be suffering from GDM, according to a study by the Diabetes Care Institute in that city, whose results were reported in February.
“What is alarming,” the report said, “is that of the five women found to have diabetes, two were diagnosed with the silent killer while the other three went undetected.”
And women with GDM were at higher risk of developing diabetes later in life, warned an earlier study in Kerala’s neighbouring state of Tamil Nadu, conducted by a group of doctors led by endocrinologist Dr V. Seshiah.
“They are the ideal group to be targeted for lifestyle modification or pharmacologic intervention in order to delay or postpone the onset of overt diabetes. Hence, an important public health priority in the prevention of diabetes is to address maternal health both during the ante- and post-partum period,” the study noted.
Medical researchers believe that the disease, earlier considered an ailment of the rich, is on the rise in India. Close to 70 million people – half of them women – in this country of 1.21 billion are living with diabetes, and the number is predicted to go up to 101.2 million by 2030.
Nearly 60 per cent of diabetics in India have never been screened or diagnosed due to a lack of awareness, according to a 2012 report published by the Brussels-based International Diabetes Federation (IDF), an umbrella organisation of diabetes associations in 160 countries. The study also noted that nearly 63 per cent did not even know the complications that arise from the disease.
Doctors attending the four-day World Congress of Diabetes in April, organised by Diabetes India in Kochi, suggested India-specific treatment guidelines for helping the rapidly growing number of patients in the country.
Dr Jothydev Kesavadev, the organising secretary for the fifth edition of the congress and the moderator for glucose monitoring consensus guidelines, told IPS that low-income patients suffer the most as they lack medical insurance.
“Though there are international guidelines for the treatment of diabetes, there is an urgent need for country-oriented guidelines,” he said, “especially in areas of glucose monitoring and use of insulin in hospitals, besides taking into consideration the socioeconomic status of a patient and the country.”
Healthcare experts say that a combination of dietary pattern, sedentary lifestyle, obesity, and genetic predisposition puts Indians at a unique risk of acquiring diabetes.
Analysing the increasing percentage of diabetic patients in the country, Dr Meenu Hariharan, director of the Indian Institute of Diabetes in Thiruvananthapuram, told IPS that Indians were more prone genetically to diabetes than Europeans.
“Reduced physical activity and obesity accelerate the onset of diabetes in genetically predisposed people,” she said. Starch-rich diets and increased intake of tinned foods with a high content of preservatives are other culprits.
A host of studies and screening programmes have highlighted the fact that diabetes is spreading fast across the country.
Cases of diabetes are higher in the four southern states – Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala – than in other states, according to the results of a countrywide blood testing campaign conducted under the National Programme for Prevention and Control of Cancer, Diabetes, Cardiovascular Diseases and Strokes by the country’s health ministry.
In Tamil Nadu, 11.76 per cent of people tested positive for diabetes, 10.2 percent in Karnataka, 8.83 per cent in Kerala, and 8.72 per cent in Andhra Pradesh, compared to just 2.95 percent in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, which reported the lowest incidence of the disease.
Alarmingly, rural areas are also seeing a rise in diabetes rates, as a fall-out of rapid urbanisation. However, the incidence of the disease remains higher in cities than in villages, according to Dr V. Ramankutty, a well-known health activist and professor at Thiruvananthapuram’s AMCHSS.
Talking to IPS, he charted the rise in the incidence of the disease. A survey in the early 1970s, he said, found only 2.3 per cent of the urban population and 1.5 per cent of the rural population to be suffering from diabetes. But by 1992, the proportion had gone up to 8.2 per cent and 2.4 per cent for urban and rural areas, respectively. A repeat survey after five years found an even higher prevalence of the disease in urban areas, at 11.6 per cent.
But if it’s any consolation, insulin-deficient diabetes in children is less common in India than in Western countries, said Dr G.D. Thapar, former director of the Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital in New Delhi. In his book ‘How to Lead a Healthy Life despite Diabetes’, he emphasised how crucial breast-feeding is to prevent the disease in children.
No Sweet Consolation for Women Diabetics
The disease itself may not discriminate on the basis of gender, but when it comes to healthcare for patients with diabetes, women in India find themselves at a disadvantage compared to men.
This was the conclusion of the study, ‘Impact of Gender on Care of Type 2 Diabetes in Varkala, Kerala’, which analysed gender roles, norms and values in a household and found women patients to be more vulnerable.
Women in India face disadvantages when it comes to diabetes. Credit: K.S. Harikrishnan/IPS
And this vulnerability influences all phases of diabetic care, according to the paper by Dr Mini P. Mani at the Achutha Menon Centre for Health Science Studies (AMCHSS) in Thiruvananthapuram, the capital of the southern Indian state of Kerala.
Even when they themselves suffer from diabetes, women cannot abandon the ‘caretaker role’ in the family and have to continue to prioritise the health of other family members above their own, the study found. Further, inequitable access to resources prevents early diagnosis of the disease in women.
Women pay more attention to the health of the men and children in the family, leaving them with less time to devote to their own wellbeing, said Rosy Raphy, who teaches at a school in Munambam, near the central Kerala town of Kochi.
“As someone who has lived with diabetes for 26 years,” Raphy told IPS, “I can say that I was not aware of the disease and did not take due care because I was preoccupied with matters of the family. As a result, my case got aggravated.”
Of particular concern to women and gynaecologists in the country is Gestational Diabetes Mellitus (GDM), a form of the disease that affects pregnant women.
The incidence of GDM has grown fourfold in the last 10 years, according to Dr B. Rajkumar, a doctor of Indian Systems of Medicine at the Keezhariyoor Government Ayurveda Dispensary in the state’s northern coastal district of Kozhikode.
“Earlier, pregnant women would engage in physical activity while doing housework. Today, the lifestyle of women has changed. Lack of exercise affects the body. And obesity, too, is a cause of gestational diabetes,” he said.
One in five pregnant women in Ahmedabad in the western Indian state of Gujarat were found to be suffering from GDM, according to a study by the Diabetes Care Institute in that city, whose results were reported in February.
“What is alarming,” the report said, “is that of the five women found to have diabetes, two were diagnosed with the silent killer while the other three went undetected.”
And women with GDM were at higher risk of developing diabetes later in life, warned an earlier study in Kerala’s neighbouring state of Tamil Nadu, conducted by a group of doctors led by endocrinologist Dr V. Seshiah.
“They are the ideal group to be targeted for lifestyle modification or pharmacologic intervention in order to delay or postpone the onset of overt diabetes. Hence, an important public health priority in the prevention of diabetes is to address maternal health both during the ante- and post-partum period,” the study noted.
Medical researchers believe that the disease, earlier considered an ailment of the rich, is on the rise in India. Close to 70 million people – half of them women – in this country of 1.21 billion are living with diabetes, and the number is predicted to go up to 101.2 million by 2030.
Nearly 60 per cent of diabetics in India have never been screened or diagnosed due to a lack of awareness, according to a 2012 report published by the Brussels-based International Diabetes Federation (IDF), an umbrella organisation of diabetes associations in 160 countries. The study also noted that nearly 63 per cent did not even know the complications that arise from the disease.
Doctors attending the four-day World Congress of Diabetes in April, organised by Diabetes India in Kochi, suggested India-specific treatment guidelines for helping the rapidly growing number of patients in the country.
Dr Jothydev Kesavadev, the organising secretary for the fifth edition of the congress and the moderator for glucose monitoring consensus guidelines, told IPS that low-income patients suffer the most as they lack medical insurance.
“Though there are international guidelines for the treatment of diabetes, there is an urgent need for country-oriented guidelines,” he said, “especially in areas of glucose monitoring and use of insulin in hospitals, besides taking into consideration the socioeconomic status of a patient and the country.”
Healthcare experts say that a combination of dietary pattern, sedentary lifestyle, obesity, and genetic predisposition puts Indians at a unique risk of acquiring diabetes.
Analysing the increasing percentage of diabetic patients in the country, Dr Meenu Hariharan, director of the Indian Institute of Diabetes in Thiruvananthapuram, told IPS that Indians were more prone genetically to diabetes than Europeans.
“Reduced physical activity and obesity accelerate the onset of diabetes in genetically predisposed people,” she said. Starch-rich diets and increased intake of tinned foods with a high content of preservatives are other culprits.
A host of studies and screening programmes have highlighted the fact that diabetes is spreading fast across the country.
Cases of diabetes are higher in the four southern states – Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala – than in other states, according to the results of a countrywide blood testing campaign conducted under the National Programme for Prevention and Control of Cancer, Diabetes, Cardiovascular Diseases and Strokes by the country’s health ministry.
In Tamil Nadu, 11.76 per cent of people tested positive for diabetes, 10.2 percent in Karnataka, 8.83 per cent in Kerala, and 8.72 per cent in Andhra Pradesh, compared to just 2.95 percent in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, which reported the lowest incidence of the disease.
Alarmingly, rural areas are also seeing a rise in diabetes rates, as a fall-out of rapid urbanisation. However, the incidence of the disease remains higher in cities than in villages, according to Dr V. Ramankutty, a well-known health activist and professor at Thiruvananthapuram’s AMCHSS.
Talking to IPS, he charted the rise in the incidence of the disease. A survey in the early 1970s, he said, found only 2.3 per cent of the urban population and 1.5 per cent of the rural population to be suffering from diabetes. But by 1992, the proportion had gone up to 8.2 per cent and 2.4 per cent for urban and rural areas, respectively. A repeat survey after five years found an even higher prevalence of the disease in urban areas, at 11.6 per cent.
But if it’s any consolation, insulin-deficient diabetes in children is less common in India than in Western countries, said Dr G.D. Thapar, former director of the Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital in New Delhi. In his book ‘How to Lead a Healthy Life despite Diabetes’, he emphasised how crucial breast-feeding is to prevent the disease in children.
OP-ED: Put a Spotlight on African Women’s Reproductive Rights
A mother and her child from West Point, a low-income neighbourhood of Monrovia, Liberia. The 10-worst countries to be a mother in are all in sub-Saharan Africa. Credit: Travis Lupick/IPS
Victoria J. married in 2009 at age 14, and became pregnant shortly after. “I started labour in the morning on a Friday …. The nurse kept checking and saying I would deliver safely. On Monday she said I was weak.
“The doctor decided to operate on me. (During the) operation they found the baby was dead. The doctor said the baby had died due to the long labour. After that, I found out that urine was coming out all the time,” she said.
Women and girls like Victoria in Kenya, South Africa and South Sudan also spoke to us about pregnancy and childbirth. Sadly, too many of their stories were not about the joy of having a child, but about abuse, neglect and pain.
In interviews and reporting across Africa, Human Rights Watch heard from girls who knew too little about sexuality and family planning when they were forced into marriage and pregnancy.
We spoke to girls who were married and conceived when their bodies were not mature enough to go safely through pregnancy and delivery. Women and girls also told of health centres that were poorly staffed and ill-equipped to handle obstetric complications.
They described not having enough money for transportation to government health facilities or to pay the high cost of giving birth there. Women described the shortage of ambulances to transport them when they needed specialised care, abuse and negligence by health workers, and the absence of a complaints process to notify the facilities of mistreatment and other problems.
Sadly, we spoke with the families of those women and girls who did not survive pregnancy and could not tell their own stories.
Significant global and regional progress has been made to reduce the number of preventable maternal deaths: data released in 2012 by the United Nations shows that the number of women worldwide dying of pregnancy and childbirth-related complications has almost halved in the last 20 years.
Human Rights Watch researcher Agnes Odhiambo. Courtesy: Human Rights Watch.
The report, “Trends in Maternal Mortality: 1990 to 2010”, shows that sub-Saharan Africa saw a 41 percent reduction in maternal death. Despite these promising results — in a region that bears a disproportionate burden of maternal mortality — the progress is still too slow and uneven.
The 10-worst countries to be a mother in, according to Plan International’s “State of the world’s mothers report”, are all in sub-Saharan Africa. In addition to the unacceptably high numbers of women who die, African women also suffer disproportionately from childbirth injuries.
One of the most devastating is the obstetric fistula that Victoria suffered from, which leads to constant leakage of urine and stool. Fistula can be prevented or treated and hardly exists in the developed world.
As the African Union (AU) celebrates 50 years of existence on May 25, it should put a spotlight on the human rights of African women and girls.
The AU adopted the Maputo Protocol in 2003. Of the 54 AU member countries, 36 have ratified it. The protocol is unique in that it focuses on issues that affect women in Africa the most and covers topics that are not included in international treaties, including CEDAW (Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women), the women’s rights convention.
It is in the area of reproductive rights that the protocol is most ground-breaking. Article 14 calls on governments to provide adequate, affordable and accessible health services and to establish and strengthen existing health and nutritional services for women during pregnancy and while they are breast-feeding.
Importantly, it calls on governments to protect the reproductive rights of women by authorising medical abortion in cases of sexual assault, rape, incest, and where there is a risk to the health or life of the mother or the foetus.
There are many other commitments and declarations, at least on paper, promoting maternal health in Africa. In 2008, the AU passed a resolution on maternal mortality in Africa, well before the U.N. Human Rights Council did so, that recognised that preventable maternal mortality is a violation of women’s right to life, health and dignity. It included recommendations to improve health financing and accountability.
The AU’s campaign on Accelerated Reduction of Maternal Mortality in Africa features the theme “Africa Cares: No Woman Should Die While Giving Life,” to mobilise political commitment and resources to help reduce maternal deaths.
The campaign includes a focus on improving monitoring of health systems. Since its launch in 2009, 37 countries have joined the campaign and signed on to its pledge.
While these commitments are important, it is time African governments be held accountable for failing to meet them.
To date, accountability has not been one of the AU’s strong points — but that can change. While the AU recognises that member states have not done enough to reduce maternal deaths, there is no effective monitoring and reporting mechanism at the regional level on what countries are doing to fulfil their promises, and where they are lacking. Establishing such a mechanism could enable countries to identify failings and needs, and to learn from each other’s best practices.
It is time for the governments and leaders of Africa to honour their commitments to women. It is time for Africa and the AU to ensure that no woman should die while giving life.
* Agnes Odhiambo and Gauri Van Gulik are researchers with the Women’s Rights Division at Human Rights Watch.
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Q&A: Crisis Escalates as International Community Fails Syria
With no end in sight for the ongoing two-year war in Syria, the ensuing humanitarian crisis continues to escalate, with over 1 million refugees having fled to neighbouring countries and at least another 3 million displaced within Syria.
Despite the staggering human cost of the war, however, the international community is very close to failing these refugees, warns Panos Moumtzis, UNHCR regional coordinator for Syrian refugees.
Panos Moumtzis, UNHCR regional coordinator for Syrian refugees. Photo courtesy of UNHCR.
All sides “appear to be committed only to military means for resolving the conflict”, Moumtzis told IPS, a decision that is leading to what he called “a massive exodus of people”.
Moumtzis has extensive experience in crisis management, having worked in Gaza, Iraq, Bosnia and Kosovo, and other countries with humanitarian emergencies. He describes the Syrian crisis as one of the most acute crises he has ever seen.
IPS correspondent Apostolis Fotiadis spoke with Moumtzis about the situation in and surrounding Syria and the role of the international community in this crisis.
Q: What are the characteristics of the Syrian refugee population?
A: Most of the refugees are Sunni Muslim. Three quarters of those crossing the border are women and children. More than half are children. A large percentage of the men you see in Iraq are mainly Kurdish and wanted to escape conscription, which is a concern of many Syrians as well.
The father in one family I met told me, “In a few months my son will be 18, so we decided to take him out of school and leave the country, before it is too late and he is called to serve.”
Tens of thousands of soldiers have also left the Syrian army. A camp in Jordan, specially assigned for them, holds 20 to 30 thousand of them. But these are not refugees. Anyone who crosses the border with a gun needs to pass a period of six months without a gun or uniform before we accept him as a refugee.
Q: How many people have moved out of Syria so far, and what is the size of your regional operation?
A: Out of approximately 1.25 million refugees, 25 percent of them are in camps. This means another 75 percent is in cities and villages.
There are 17 camps in Turkey with 196,000 people, with three more being built now. Each of those is to host another 10 to 20,000. There, UNHCR advises the government, and we also try to monitor legal issues that occur for refugees and monitor registration in order to keep track of people’s special needs.
We also try to ensure that no recruitment of guerillas takes place in the camp or any kind of military activity happens there.
We run two camps in Iraq and another three in Jordan. Turkey provides things we are unable to offer in our camps, like hot water, three meals per day, and whoever gets married goes on a month holiday. It is very important that camps strictly maintain a civilian character.
Q: How fluid is population movement? Do people return to Syria while others escape the country?
A: We have had spontaneous returns in the last three months. Very often people want to go back and see their houses. Men bring the family out of Syria and then return to check on their property.
Q: If the situation in Syria calms down, how easy would be for refugees to return there?
A: We would suggest that people stay outside Syria for some time until we know an agreement or deal is implemented.
The ones close to the borders whose houses have not been destroyed would return first, whereas people living in Baba Amr at Homs would be the last to return, since the area is devastated.
We are interested in that returns are voluntary, that no one pressures people to return, and that people know what they will face when they return.
Still, in every conflict there are people that cannot return. If the regime changes, for instance, we would see Sunnis going back and ethnic minorities leaving the country.
Q: Has the international community stood up to the task of dealing with the humanitarian disaster in Syria?
A: U.N. agencies estimate that meeting these refugees’ needs requires 1 billion dollars for surrounding countries and another 500 million for those inside Syria. We now have 30 percent of this budget, so we must assess the most urgent needs.
One should also consider the failure of the international community to give a political solution to the Syrian civil war.
Q: Has the international community failed Syria because of the many different geopolitical interests involved in this crisis?
A: It is better to say that the international community has failed politically until now. Humanitarian assistance is an alternative, so we can say they are offering something for this failure.
But there are so many forces inside Syria right now that make the resolution of this conflict a very complicated task. The uprising against a family regime has turned into a war that increasingly resembles a fight between Sunni and Shia, a fight of Hezbollah and Iran against Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United States, as well as a war in which Al Qaeda has intervened.
Q: Many voices warn about a domino effect, with the war spreading into Lebanon. Are these warnings valid?
A: This is not a theoretical danger. It’s a real threat. Overall, Lebanon seems very unstable at the moment, and the bad economic situation in the country does not help. Many times we have to ask our personnel not to do certain things because of the uncertainty.
In Tripoli, people have been killed in armed incidents. A bomb was placed in Beirut three months ago. There is also tension at Sirte, in the south, due to the Hezbollah presence there and in the Beqaa valley as well.
Explosives Shatter Lives in Kashmir
Qadir Sheikh, a landmine victim from Warsun, laments that his handicap will mean no education for his two daughters. Credit: Athar Parvaiz/IPS
Aadil Khan and his two siblings had been playing as usual behind their house in the village of Diver, 110 kilometres north of Kashmir’s capital, Srinagar, when they came across what they thought was a “plaything” laying on the ground. But no sooner had they picked the object up than it literally shattered their innocent lives into pieces.
Stunned by the explosion from the shell, which the children had mistaken for a toy, they cannot remember much about the aftermath of that incident on Dec. 17. But the medics who treated them said they were “lucky” to have escaped with their lives.
“Aadil and Mashoq received severe injuries while their sister Naza escaped any major damage,” Sharief Khan, the children’s father, told IPS.
Khan, who supports a family of seven and earns his livelihood through manual labour, had to make a “tough decision” to ensure his children received proper medical treatment: he had to sell off a portion of his land.
The value of land in his village is so low that he only received 800 dollars for the entire plot, which is less than two-eighths of an acre, but Khan had few options. “Who could have lent such a huge amount to a poor man like me?” he asked.
Nearly six months later, Khan is still feeling the crunch of that sacrifice, forced to buy extra rice in the market because his remaining land does not yield enough grain to feed his large family. Already accustomed to the pangs of hunger, the Khan family now almost never has enough to eat.
Such are the stories of the nearly 700 victims of shells and mines here in Kashmir, a valley tucked between the Great Himalayas and the Pir Panjal mountain range, whose scenic beauty conceals a bloody history that has its roots in the 1947 partition of India.
As the latter celebrated its independence from British colonial rule, and the newly created state of Pakistan struggled to find its feet, Kashmir found itself claimed by both sides.
While the two countries jostled for power over the resource-rich region, a United Nations resolution offered the valley’s residents three possibilities: either join Hindu-dominated India, Muslim-majority Pakistan, or vote for independence. But this last option was never made a reality, leaving Pakistan to seize a third of the territory and India to administer what was left.
For decades Kashmiris have resisted this arrangement, enforced by India and Pakistan. The “pro-freedom” uprising of 1989 morphed into a resistance movement that continues to simmer today and has resulted in at least 60,000 deaths to date.
Those whose lives have been spared have not been left untouched by the conflict, with hundreds maimed by landmines and unexploded shells months, even years, after they were planted. Most of the victims are children or farmers, who stumble across unexploded shells in fields where encounters between insurgents and the Indian army once took place.
Though no exact figures are available, experts believe thousands of unexploded shells and mines are scattered around frontier areas like the northeastern administrative unit of Karnah; the western town of Poonch; the Rajouri district, also known as the Vale of Lakes; Uri, a town located on the banks of the river Jhelum; and in various remote villages.
Earlier this year, four children were injured when a shell exploded in Chattabandy, a village in Kashmir’s Bandipora district.
“The children were playing in an open paddy field when they found an unexploded shell and started fiddling with it,” a villager named Mohammad Ramzan, who witnessed the scene on Feb. 3, told IPS, adding that such incidents have become a matter of “routine.”
“A number of people, mostly kids, have either been killed or sustained injuries in such explosions in and around our village alone,” he said.
For nine-year-old Aadil Khan, memories of the blast are too painful to recall. Though he is now recovering, he is plagued by the hardships his family has endured as a result of his injury.
But activists lament that the Khan family’s situation is not unique. Those maimed by stray explosives receive standard government compensation of about 1,500 dollars, a sum that does not even cover the most basic treatment and fails to take into account the fact that most victims end up disabled for life, according to Dr. Hameeda Nayeem, a civil rights activist and professor at Kashmir University.
She told IPS nearly 100 percent of the victims come from poor socio-economic backgrounds and belong to families who earn less than 95 dollars a month.
A technician at the the Hope Disability Centre in Kashmir preparing prosthetic limbs. Credit: Athar Parvaiz/IPS
Qalandar Khan, a farm worker who was handicapped by a shell in 2012, is one such example. In the last year his family has spent 1,900 dollars on his treatment by selling off their cattle. The medical expenses have devoured their savings, and the loss of their animals has left them with almost no income since Qalandar was the family’s sole breadwinner.
“Now, the onus is on me and the kids,” his wife Reshma tells IPS. “Sometimes we don’t have enough to eat.”
Clinics providing free services are few and far between. One of them, the Hope Disability Centre, is currently treating 150 of the roughly 700 landmine victims, according to Director Sami Wani.
Working in collaboration with the Paris-based Handicap International, the NGO sends its coordinators into affected areas to identify families or victims in need of support, and even “provides prosthetics free of charge,” Wani told IPS.
Zahid Ahmad, coordinator of the northwestern Kupwara district for the Hope Disability Centre, says he found Qadir Sheikh in the village of Dardsun during one of his routine searches for victims.
“Had he not come, I would not have got my prosthesis,” Sheikh told IPS. He received basic training at the Centre and is now able to walk, but still cannot find a job. “I am worried about my two daughters, as I am not in a position to earn enough money to educate them.”
Rights activists say that the government should offer better compensation to those who have lost body parts and been rendered disabled.
“Most of these victims are now dependent on others,” Khurram Parvez, convener of the Srinagar-based Coalition of Civil Society (CCS), told IPS. “They should be compensated in a manner that allows them to lead dignified lives.”
Caregivers of victims who are bedridden, immobile, or otherwise unable to perform the most basic life functions are under enourmous pressure. In the village of Marhama, Habeed Lone sits by the side of his disabled wife Fata, who had both legs amputated after stepping on a mine on her way home from the family farm.
“We have six children and I have to take care of them and my wife single-handedly,” Lone tells IPS.
According to experts like Parvez, “It is the duty of security agencies to sanitise the surroundings of a place where they carry out combat operations,” adding that no effort has so far been made to raise awareness among the general public about the hazards involved in coming across these destructive shells.
