SUJAWAL: Clutching their hungry babies, a group of mothers mix a semolina dish under the guidance of a teacher, an attempt to curb malnutrition which affects nearly one in two children in Pakistan’s south.
Despite Sindh province being home to the mega port city of Karachi, the financial center of the country that sprawls along the Arabian coastline, children in rural areas just a few hours away face stark levels of wasting and stunting.
In the arid village of Sujawal, lethargic children with prominent bones wilt in the searing heat as social workers educate mothers on nutrient-rich ingredients and dispel myths around food.
“Before, we only gave our children potatoes because they were always available at home,” said Shahnaz, 25, who has radically changed the diet of her six children, weak and frequently sick, after a year of classes.
Now, convinced that children should eat a varied diet, she has introduced affordable ingredients such as lentils and semolina into her cooking, lifting her daughter out of malnutrition.
In impoverished rural Sindh province, 48 percent of children under five suffer from malnutrition and 20 percent from its most severe form, wasting, according to the latest national survey on the issue conducted in 2018.
In this class, Azma, a social worker, shows mothers how to cook with semolina — easily available in the market.
“Semolina is cheap — for 50 rupees it can last a week if you’re feeding one to two spoonfuls daily to a six-month-old child,” she explained to AFP.
In Sindh, a province of 55 million people where contraception remains taboo and large families are the norm, 3,500 mothers have benefited from cooking classes developed by UNICEF.
Like many mothers in the area, Kulsoom, 23 and pregnant with her sixth child, all born prematurely and underweight, once only fed her children pieces of fried flatbread.
“One of my children died, and my youngest is extremely weak, so I was advised to take these classes,” said Kulsoom, who goes by only one name, like most women in her district.
NO SPICES
Parents are recommended to feed babies solid foods from about six months old, but in rural Sindh this often means adult leftovers, too spicy for young stomachs.
“The main problem is the lack of dietary diversity,” says Mazhar Iqbal, a nutritionist for UNICEF.
In Pakistan, 38 percent of children eat only two or fewer of the eight food categories recommended by UNICEF.
Meat is saved for special occasions, yet inexpensive protein alternatives exist such as chicken offal, boiled bones, lentils and beans.
As for fruit and vegetables, they are usually fried, losing their nutrients.
Bakhtawar Kareem joined the program after her child died of anaemia.
“I have no money. Sometimes we eat, sometimes we don’t,” she lamented, scanning the swollen belly of her one-year-old daughter, who has only sparse clumps of hair.
Like 72 percent of children in the village, her daughter has stunting, well above the average rate in Pakistan of 42 percent — one of the highest in the world.
Stunting is most closely associated with brain development and physical growth, and can have long-term physical and mental impacts.
Vulnerable to a lack of clean water and sanitation which contributes to malnutrition, children often also suffer from dengue fever or malaria, from vomiting, diarrhea, or difficulty urinating, and have abnormally swollen bellies.
WOMEN EAT LEFTOVERS
But the vicious cycle of malnutrition begins with the mothers.
“With early marriages and repeated pregnancies, more than 45 percent of women in Sindh are anaemic,” said the nutritionist.
“This increases the risk of having low birth weight babies, who are more likely to suffer from malnutrition.”
In Sujawal, where only a quarter of the population can read and write, myths about food also deprive women of vital nutrients.
Farrah Naz, the head of the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition in Pakistan, regularly has to repeat that eggs and dried fruits do not cause women to bleed more during their periods.
Cultural norms around women serving meals to men first and eating the leftovers — despite the physical work they carry out in the fields — also contributes to poor health.
“And when food runs out, it’s their rations that are cut first.”
Singer Quratulain Balouch, popularly known as QB, was injured in Skardu’s Deosai National Park after being attacked by a brown bear during a camping trip on Thursday night. She was rescued by nearby people and rushed to a hospital, where doctors say she is out of danger.
According to Gilgit-Baltistan wildlife officials, the rare brown bear attacked the singer’s camp near Bara Pani, a popular camping site in Deosai, where she was with her team for a shoot.
According to Baltistan police spokesperson Ghulam Muhammad, Balouch was with two friends when the bear attacked, injuring both of her arms with its claws and teeth. Her cameraman and another companion were unharmed in the incident.
Sources said the bear retreated after her screams alerted others in the area. Wildlife staff stationed near the campsite quickly intervened, administered first aid, and shifted her to RHQ Hospital Skardu, where doctors confirmed she is out of danger. Police have since launched an investigation into the incident.
Photo: K2 Adventure Club
The Himalayan brown bear, native to Deosai, often moves towards Bara Pani in search of food. Similar attacks have occurred in the past, according to Muhammad.
Authorities have urged tourists to exercise caution when camping in Deosai, advising visitors to pitch camps closer to hotels or designated safe zones at night.
Stretching between Skardu and Astore districts, Deosai National Park is one of Pakistan’s most striking landscapes. Each summer, the park attracts a large number of national and international tourists who camp there for days.
It is also home to a diverse range of wildlife, with its most iconic residents being the Himalayan marmot and the endangered Himalayan brown bear, with a population estimated at just 77. They primarily feed on fish in the Bandapani river.
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ISLAMABAD (Dunya News) – The Islamabad High Court (IHC) has constituted a four-member larger bench to hear a petition filed by Dr Fowzia Siddiqui seeking the release of her sister, Dr Aafia Siddiqui, from a US jail.
The larger bench will be headed by Justice Arbab Muhammad Tahir, with Justice Khadim Hussain Somroo, Justice Azam Khan, and Justice Raja Inam Amin Minhas as members.
According to the cause list, the hearing on the petition is scheduled for September 10.
On September 1, Justice Inam Ameen Minhas referred the case file to the chief justice, recommending the formation of a larger bench after he recused from hearing the case.
Previously, the case was being heard by Justice Sardar Ejaz Ishaq Khan, who had issued contempt notices to the prime minister and cabinet members for non-compliance with court directions.
However, after Justice Ejaz was assigned to the special division bench for tax cases, his single bench cases, including this one, were transferred.
The case relates to the federal government’s failure to act on judicial instructions regarding efforts for the repatriation of Dr Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist imprisoned in the United States.
Islamabad, Pakistan – For the second time in three years, catastrophic monsoon floods have carved a path of destruction across Pakistan’s north and central regions, particularly in its Punjab province, submerging villages, drowning farmland, displacing millions and killing hundreds.
This year, India – Pakistan’s archrival and a nuclear-armed neighbour – is also reeling. Its northern states, including Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Indian Punjab, have seen widespread flooding as heavy monsoon rains swell rivers on both sides of the border.
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Pakistani authorities say that since late June, when the monsoon season began, at least 884 people have died nationally, more than 220 of them in Punjab. On the Indian side, the casualty count has crossed 100, with more than 30 dead in Indian Punjab.
Yet, shared suffering hasn’t brought the neighbours closer: In Pakistan’s Punjab, which borders India, federal minister Ahsan Iqbal has, in fact, accused New Delhi of deliberately releasing excess water from dams without timely warnings.
“India has started using water as a weapon and has caused wide-scale flooding in Punjab,” Iqbal said last month, citing releases into the Ravi, Sutlej and Chenab rivers, all of which originate in Indian territory and flow into Pakistan.
Iqbal further said that releasing flood water was the “worst example of water aggression” by India, which he said threatened lives, property and livelihoods.
“Some issues should be beyond politics, and water cooperation must be one of them,” the minister said on August 27, while he participated in rescue efforts in Narowal city, his constituency that borders India.
Those accusations come amid heightened tensions between India and Pakistan, and the breakdown of a six-decade-old pact that helped them share waters for rivers that are lifelines to both nations.
But experts argue that the evidence is thin to suggest that India might have deliberately sought to flood Pakistan – and the larger nation’s own woes point to the risks of such a strategy, even if New Delhi were to contemplate it.
Weaponising water
Flood-affected people walk along the shelters at a makeshift camp in Chung, in Pakistan’s Punjab province, on August 31, 2025. Nearly half a million people have been displaced by flooding in eastern Pakistan after days of heavy rain swelled rivers [Aamir Qureshi/AFP]
Relations between India and Pakistan, already at a historic low, plummeted further in April after the Pahalgam attack, in which gunmen killed 26 civilians in Indian-administered Kashmir. India blamed Pakistan for the attack and walked out of the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT), the transboundary agreement that governs the Indus Basin’s six rivers.
Pakistan rejected the accusation that it was in any way behind the Pahalgam attack. But in early May, the neighbours waged a four-day conflict, targeting each other’s military bases with missiles and drones in the gravest military escalation between them in almost three decades.
Under the IWT, the two countries were required to exchange detailed water-flow data regularly. With India no longer adhering to the pact, fears have mounted in recent months that New Delhi could either try to stop the flow of water into Pakistan, or flood its western neighbour through sudden, large releases.
After New Delhi suspended its participation in the IWT, India’s Home Minister Amit Shah in June said the treaty would never be restored, a stance that prompted protests in Pakistan and accusations of “water terrorism”.
But while the Indian government has not issued a formal response to accusations that it has chosen to flood Pakistan, the Indian High Commission in Islamabad has, in the last two weeks, shared several warnings of possible cross-border flooding on “humanitarian grounds”.
And water experts say that attributing Pakistan’s floods primarily to Indian water releases from dams is an “oversimplification” of the causes of the crisis that risks obscuring the urgent, shared challenges posed by climate change and ageing infrastructure.
“The Indian decision to release water from their dam has not caused flooding in Pakistan,” said Daanish Mustafa, a professor of critical geography at King’s College London.
“India has major dams on its rivers, which eventually make their way to Pakistan. Any excess water that will be released from these rivers will significantly impact India’s own states first,” he told Al Jazeera.
Shared monsoon strain
Both Pakistan and India depend on glaciers in the Himalayan and Karakoram ranges to feed their rivers. For Pakistan, the Indus river basin is a lifeline. It supplies water to most of the country’s roughly 250 million people and underpins its agriculture.
Pakistan’s monsoon floods have pushed the nationwide death toll past 800, with hundreds of thousands of people displaced from their homes due to surging water [A Hussain/EPA]
Under the IWT, India controls the three eastern rivers – Ravi, Sutlej and Beas – while Pakistan controls the three western rivers, Jhelum, Chenab and Indus.
India is obligated to allow waters of the western rivers to flow into Pakistan with limited exceptions, and to provide timely, detailed hydrological data.
India has built dams on the eastern rivers it controls, and the flow of the Ravi and Sutlej into Pakistan has considerably reduced since then. It has also built dams on some of the western rivers – it is allowed to, under the treaty, as long as that does not affect the volume of water flowing into Pakistan.
But melting glaciers and an unusually intense summer monsoon pushed river levels on both sides of the border dangerously high this year.
In Pakistan, glacial outbursts followed by heavy rains raised levels in the western rivers, while surging flows put infrastructure on the eastern rivers in India at serious risk.
Mustafa of King’s College said that dams – like other infrastructure – are designed keeping in mind a safe capacity of water that they can hold, and are typically meant to operate for about 100 years. But climate change has dramatically altered the average rainfall that might have been taken into account while designing these projects.
“The parameters used to build the dams are now obsolete and meaningless,” he said. “When the capacity of the dams is exceeded, water must be released or it will put the entire structure at risk of destruction.”
Among the major dams upstream in Indian territory are Salal and Baglihar on the Chenab; Pong on the Beas; Bhakra on the Sutlej; and Ranjit Sagar (also known as Thein) on the Ravi.
These dams are based in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir, Indian Punjab and Himachal Pradesh, with vast areas of Indian territory between them and the border.
Blaming India for the flooding in Pakistan makes no sense, said Shiraz Memon, a former Pakistani representative on the bilateral commission tasked under the IWT to monitor the implementation of the pact.
“Instead of acknowledging that India has shared warnings, we are blaming them of water terrorism. It is [a] simple, natural flood phenomenon,” Memon said, adding that by the end of August, reservoirs across the region were full.
“With water at capacity, spillways had to be opened for downstream releases. This is a natural solution as there is no other option available,” he told Al Jazeera.
Politics of blame
Stranded pilgrims cross a water channel using a makeshift bridge the day after flash floods in Chositi village, Kishtwar district, in Indian-administered Kashmir last month [Channi Anand/AP Photo]
According to September 3 data on India’s Central Water Commission website, at least a dozen sites face a “severe” flood situation, and another 19 are above normal flood levels.
The same day, Pakistan’s Ministry of Water Resources issued a notification, quoting a message from the Indian High Commission, warning of “high flood” on the Sutlej and Tawi rivers.
It was the fourth such notice by India after three earlier warnings last week, but none contained detailed hydrological data.
Pakistan’s Meteorological Department, in a report on September 4, said on the Pakistani side, two sites on the Sutlej and Ravi faced “extremely high” flood levels, while two other sites on the Ravi and Chenab saw “very high” levels.
The sheer volume of water during an intense monsoon often exceeds any single dam or barrage’s capacity. Controlled releases have become a necessary, if dangerous, part of flood management on both sides of the border, said experts.
They added that while the IWT obliged India to alert Pakistan to abnormal flows, Pakistan also needs better monitoring and real-time data systems rather than relying solely on diplomatic exchanges.
The blame game, analysts warn, can serve short-term political purposes on both sides, especially after May’s conflict.
For India, suspending the treaty is framed as a firm stance against what it sees as Pakistan’s state-sponsored terrorism. For Pakistan, blaming India can provide a political scapegoat that distracts from domestic failures in flood mitigation and governance.
“Rivers are living, breathing entities. This is what they do; they are always on the move. You cannot control the flood, especially a high or severe flood,” academic Mustafa said.
Blaming India won’t stop the floods. But, he added, it appears to be an “easy way out to relinquish responsibility”.
