Bongaigaon district, Assam:
For the four lakh people packed into relief camps in Assam, food, water and medicines are missing. They fled their homes in the worse communal violence in over a decade - 60 people have been killed in ethnic clashes between the indigenous Bodos and Bengali Muslims who inhabit parts of Lower Assam like Kokrajhar.
In a remote relief camp at the Chirang district, four-year-old Arfia has died. The girl had high fever for over a week, and her parents say there were neither doctors nor medicines to save her life.
"We are in a state of high alert," said Assam's Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma. "People in the camps are suffering from diahorrea, dysentery, malaria and high fever. We are concerned about the condition of the babies and pregnant women." Sarma said around 8,000 children under two-years-old are sick, while hundreds of others have tested positive for malaria. There are also around 4,000 pregnant women in the camps who need medical support, he added.
Violence erupted on July 20 when unidentified men killed four Bodo youths. In retaliation, armed Bodos - which dominate Assam's Kokrajhar district - attacked Muslims, suspecting them of being behind the deaths.
110 doctors are trying to look after the camps. Another 100 are expected to arrive shortly, says the government.
At the Hapasara High School relief camp in the Bongaigaon district, more than half of the 2000 residents are young children. There is only one water filter at the camp, and just one set of toilets. A doctor last visited the camp three days ago, and his prescription for all ailments was either a Paracetamol or some syrup.
Five- month-old Raqibul has been running high fever for the last five days. A doctor advised his parents to shift him to a hospital in the area. But his parents and others at the camp say they have no money to afford either an ambulance or a private car to transport the boy to a local hospital. No public transport is available in the area, parts of which are still under curfew.
Aid workers described the camps as "suffocating" with livestock living alongside people, few toilets and little access to clean water. Many people sleep in the open and women have little privacy, forced to wait for dawn or dusk to find a place outside to defecate.
Authorities have been overwhelmed by the numbers of displaced -- camps designed to accommodate 400 people are brimming with five times that amount, said aid workers. "The government is lost and they are somewhat overwhelmed by the number of people who are displaced. They came in hordes and while relief is being distributed, it is totally inadequate," said Mrinal Gohain, northeast manager for the charity ActionAid.
Authorities are encouraging some of the displaced to return home, saying that the situation is under control with police and army patrols, as well as a curfew in some areas. But aid workers distributing relief in the camps say survivors are too scared to return, especially after reports that five more people were killed over the weekend.
(
With inputs from Reuters)