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Women stranded in Pakistan floods take risky trips to give birth

September 07, 2022 / 10:03 PM
Sharjah24 - Reuters: Rubina Mallah took a perilous, three-hour boat journey across flood waters to get to the nearest hospital in time to give birth to her baby son, as the roads leading to the clinic in the southern Pakistani city of Sehwan were submerged.
The 27-year-old is one of tens of thousands of pregnant women displaced by historic floods that have inundated close to a third of the country and affected 33 million people, many now in camps.

"I was worried that night as the waters from the lake overflowed," Mallah told Reuters as she cradled her one-day-old son Muhammad Tayyab. Her village, located on the edge of the huge freshwater Manchar Lake, is now under water.

"My husband brought a boat, I travelled three hours to reach the hospital where my delivery took place."

Tayyab has started life in a makeshift shelter in a school being built on the outskirts of Sehwan town. It is a common fate as millions of Pakistanis seek safety from rising waters that have flooded homes and fields and destroyed livelihoods.
September 07, 2022 / 10:03 PM

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