Connect with us

World

Swallowed by the sea, Pakistan’s Indus delta now threatened by canals

Published

on

Swallowed by the sea, Pakistan’s Indus delta now threatened by canals

Thatta, Pakistan – On a sunny afternoon at Dando Jetty, a small fishing village in Pakistan’s sprawling Indus Delta, a boat is being unloaded and another is about to leave for the Arabian Sea.

The melodious voice of Sindhi folk singer Fouzia Soomro rises from a loudspeaker playing on a nearby parked boat.

About 130km (81 miles) from Pakistan’s largest city of Karachi, Dando Jetty sits on the bank of Khobar Creek, one of the two surviving creeks of the Indus River in Thatta, a coastal district in the eastern Sindh province.

“There should be freshwater in this creek, flowing into the sea,” Zahid Sakani tells Al Jazeera as he embarks on a boat to visit his ancestral village, Haji Qadir Bux Sakani, in Kharo Chan, a sub-district of Thatta, three hours away. “Instead, it’s seawater.”

Zahid Sakani’s farmland in Thatta was swallowed by the Arabian Sea [Manesh Kumar/Al Jazeera]

Six years ago, Sakani, 45, used to be a farmer. But his land, along with the rest of Haji Qadir Bux Sakani village, was swallowed by the sea, forcing him to migrate to Baghan, 15km (nine miles) from Dando Jetty, and turn to tailoring for survival.

Advertisement

Now, the Kharo Chan port wears a deserted look – no human beings in sight, stray dogs roam freely, and abandoned boats outnumber those that are still in service. Sakani sometimes goes to Kharo Chan to visit the graves of his father and other ancestors.

“We cultivated 200 acres [81 hectares] of land and raised livestock here,” said Sakani as he stood at the port. “But all were lost to the sea.”

Kharo Chan was once a prosperous area comprising of 42 “dehs” (villages), of which only three now exist. The rest were submerged into the sea, forcing thousands of people to migrate to other villages or Karachi city.

According to the government census, Kharo Chan’s population shrunk from 26,000 in 1988 to 11,403 in 2023.

It was not only Kharo Chan that met this fate. In the past decade, dozens of villages in the Indus Delta have disappeared, swallowed by the advancing sea.

Advertisement

New canal projects

And now, a new threat has emerged in an already fragile ecosystem.

As part of a so-called Green Pakistan Initiative, the Pakistan government is seeking $6bn investment from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Bahrain over the next three to five years for corporate farming, aiming to cultivate 1.5 million acres (600,000 hectares) of barren land, and mechanise the existing 50 million acres (20 million hectares) of agricultural land across the country.

The project aims to irrigate a total of 4.8 million acres (1.9 million hectares) of barren land by constructing six canals – two each in Sindh, Balochistan, and Punjab provinces. Five of those canals will be on the Indus, while the sixth will be constructed along the Sutlej River to irrigate the Cholistan Desert in Pakistan’s most populous Punjab province.

According to the 1960 Indus Water Treaty, a World Bank-brokered water distribution agreement between India and Pakistan, the waters of the Sutlej primarily belong to India. It is one of the five rivers that originate in India and fall into the Indus in Pakistan. Along with the Sutlej, the waters of the Ravi and Beas Rivers also belong to India under the treaty, while the waters of the Chenab and Jhelum, apart from Indus itself are Pakistan’s.

However, the Sutlej does bring water to Pakistan during the monsoons in India, with Cholistan historically reliant on rainfall for irrigation.

Advertisement

“They will divert water from Indus to Sutlej through Chenab and then to Cholistan canal,” said Obhayo Khushuk, a former irrigation engineer. “You cannot build a new irrigation system depending on [monsoon] floodwater.”

Pakistan Indus
A view of the Indus Delta [Manesh Kumar/Al Jazeera]

Meanwhile, corporate farming has already begun in Cholistan under the Green Pakistan Initiative, with the authorities approving 4,121 cusecs of water to irrigate 0.6 million acres (24,000 hectares) of land in the Cholistan Desert – an area larger than Lahore, Pakistan’s second-largest city.

Mohammad Ehsan Leghari, Sindh’s representative in the Indus River System Authority (IRSA), a regulatory body established in 1992 to oversee the allocation of water to Pakistan’s four provinces, strongly opposed the move.

“From 1999 to 2024, not a single year has passed without water shortage in Pakistan, with Sindh and Balochistan provinces facing up to 50 percent water scarcity during the summer. In this situation, where will the water for the proposed canal system come from?” he asked.

In a letter to the Council of Common Interest (CCI), a constitutional body authorised to resolve issues between the federal government and provinces, the Sindh government also criticised the project, saying that IRSA had no right to issue certificates of water availability. CCI is headed by the prime minister, with the chief ministers of the four provinces and three federal ministers as its members.

Sindh’s Irrigation Minister Jam Khan Shoro warned the Cholistan canal would “turn Sindh barren”. However, federal Planning and Development Minister Ahsan Iqbal said that the Sindh government’s objections were “baseless” as new canals would not affect its share of water.

Advertisement

But Hassan Abbas, an Islamabad-based independent water and environment consultant, calls the Cholistan canal an “unscientific” project. According to him, building a canal system needs even and steady land, not sand dunes as present in Cholistan.

“Water does not know how to climb a sand dune,” Abbas said.

The delta’s destruction

The mighty Indus River has been flowing for thousands of years and once cradled one of the earliest known human civilisations spread across modern Pakistan, Afghanistan and India.

But as the British colonised the subcontinent two centuries ago, they also engineered the river, building dams and diverting its course. After independence in 1947, the same colonial policies were followed by successive governments, as more barrages, dams and canals led to the destruction of the Indus Delta – the fifth largest in the world.

“A delta is made up of sand, silt and water. The process of the destruction of the Indus Delta began back in 1850 when the Britishers established a canal network. Every canal built in Pakistan, India or China since contributed to the destruction of the Indus Delta,” Abbas told Al Jazeera. The Indus originates from the Chinese-controlled Tibet region, where China has built a dam on the river.

Advertisement
Pakistan Indus delta
Abandoned boats at Dando Jetty, a small fishing village in Thatta, Pakistan [Manesh Kumar/Al Jazeera]

According to a 2019 study by the US-Pakistan Center for Advanced Studies in Water, the Indus Delta was spread over 13,900 square kilometres (5,367sq miles) in 1833, but shrunk to just 1,067sq km (412sq miles) in 2018 – a 92 percent decline in its original area.

“A delta is like an open hand and its creeks are its fingers that fall into the sea,” Sakani said. “The space between those fingers is home to millions of people, animals and other creatures, but it is rapidly shrinking.”

As more and more land got degraded, residents were forced to migrate upstream. But not everyone could afford to move. Those who remained in the Delta switched from farming to other professions, mainly fishing.

Sidique Katiar, 55, a resident of Haji Yousif Katiar village near Dando Jetty, became a fisherman some 15 years ago.

“I remember there used to be only a few boats in our village. Now, every household has boats [and] the number of fisherfolk is growing day by day,” he told Al Jazeera.

Loss of livelihood

At Sanhiri Creek along the Arabian Sea, a seven-hour boat journey from Dando Jetty, about a dozen makeshift huts are inhabited by the so-called “fishing labourers”.

Advertisement

Nathi Mallah, 50, a resident of Joho village in Thatta’s Keti Bandar area, is one of them. She shoves a small iron rod into a jar of salt and then inserts it into the sandy ground. She waits briefly before pulling the rod back, quickly grabbing a small aquatic creature locally known as “maroarri” (razor shell in English), because of its long, narrow and rectangular shape, resembling an old-fashioned razor.

Mallah works with her husband and six children to catch “maroarri”, which the fisherfolks say is only exported to China. None of Mallah’s children go to school as the family works for 10-12 hours a day for a local contractor, who provides them some salt and drinking water.

Marroarri sells for 42 Pakistani rupees (15 US cents) a kilo and each member of the Mallah family collects about 8-10kg daily, earning them enough to survive. Nathi entered the business some five years ago when their fishing profession in Joho went into losses.

Muhammad Sadique Mallah, Nathi’s husband, says increasing land degradation pushed people to switch from farming to fishing. “There are more fishermen on the sea than there used to be in my youth,” the 55-year-old told Al Jazeera.

A 2019 report by the World Bank says catches of fish dwindled from 5,000 tonnes a year in 1951 to a meagre 300 tonnes now due to the Indus Delta’s degradation, forcing Pakistan to face a loss of $2bn annually.

Advertisement

“There was a time when our men would go to the sea and return in 10 days,” said Nathi. “Now they don’t come back even after a month.”

No water for crops

Allah Bux Kalmati, 60, lives in Dando Jetty where he cultivates tomato, chilli, some vegetables, and betel leaves. He says freshwater is only available during the two months of the monsoon season.

But Kalmati’s betel-leaf garden needs water every two weeks. “It has now been a month and there is no water for the plants,” he says.

According to the Water Apportionment Accord (WAA) of 1991, an agreement between Pakistan’s four provinces on sharing water, at least 10 million acre feet (MAF) of water has to be discharged annually down the Kotri Barrage, the last diversion on Indus, for the downstream deltaic ecosystem.

In 1991, the Switzerland-based International Union for Conservation for Nature, however, recommended a release of 27MAF annually – a goal that could never be materialised. Moreover, IRSA data showed that water flow was less than 10MAF during 12 of the past 25 years because officials diverted it elsewhere before it reached the sea.

Advertisement

“Ten MAF water is not enough for Indus Delta. It received 180 to 200MAF water annually before the canal system and it requires the same amount of water to survive,” said researcher Abbas as he attributed the water shortage to dams and barrages.

“We have 10 percent more water than the last century. But building canal after canal has diverted the flow of water, resulting in waterlogging upstream and sedimentation in the dams,” he said.

Mahmood Nawaz Shah, president of a growers’ association in Sindh, said Pakistan’s irrigation system has become “old and outdated”. “Our average grain production stands at 130 grams per cubic metre while it is 390 grams in neighbouring India,” he said.

Shah explained that instead of expanding the irrigation system, Pakistan needs to fix the existing water network and better manage the resource. “Pakistan utilises 90 percent of its water in agriculture, while the world’s usage is 75 percent maximum,” he said, citing an International Water Management Institute study.

“There are areas where canals are available but water doesn’t reach when required. Take for example the Indus Delta. You don’t have water for the existing cultivable lands. Pakistan should learn how to save water and increase its production.”

Advertisement

Back at Dando Jetty, Sakani has just returned after visiting his ancestral village in Kharo Chan. Before heading home, he wanted to buy some fresh fish at Dando, but no boat had arrived from the sea that day.

“There was a time when we would distribute palla [hilsa herring] among the beggars,” he said. “But now, we can’t get fish at this place.”

Meanwhile, the high tide makes Khobar Creek look like the sea, now only 7-8km (4-5 miles) from Baghan, Sakani’s new hometown.

“The sea was 14-15km [8-9 miles] away when we shifted here from Kharo Chan,” he told Al Jazeera. “If there is no freshwater left downstream, the sea will continue to erode the land and, in the next 15 years, Baghan, too, will perish. We will have to move again to another place.

“More canals and impediments to Indus River would completely block the flow of water into the sea. It will be the final nail in the coffin of the Indus Delta.”

Advertisement

World

Court disqualifies Trump-appointed US attorney from overseeing multiple criminal cases

Published

on

Court disqualifies Trump-appointed US attorney from overseeing multiple criminal cases

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A federal judge disqualified acting U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli in Southern California from several cases after concluding Tuesday that the Trump appointee has stayed in the temporary job longer than allowed by law.

U.S. District Judge J. Michael Seabright disqualified Essayli from supervising the criminal prosecutions in three cases, siding with defense lawyers. Essayli has been unlawfully serving as acting U.S. attorney for the Central District of California since July 29, Seabright wrote. But he may continue to serve as a First Assistant United States Attorney, Seabright ruled, effectively leaving him as the office’s top prosecutor.

“Nothing is changing,” Essayli wrote in a social media post Tuesday evening, saying he looked forward to advancing President Donald Trump’s agenda.

The decision represents another setback to the Trump administration’s effort to extend handpicked acting U.S. attorneys beyond the 120-day limit set by federal law. A judge ruled in September that acting U.S. attorney of Nevada, Sigal Chattah, was serving in her position illegally. Another judge disqualified acting U.S. attorney in New Jersey, Alina Habba, in August.

Essayli is a former federal prosecutor turned Republican California Assemblymember, where he took up conservative causes and criticized the state’s COVID-19 restrictions. He has been outspoken against California policies to protect immigrants living in the country illegally, and he has aggressively prosecuted people who protest Trump’s ramped up immigration enforcement across Southern California.

Advertisement

Under federal law, if a permanent U.S. attorney is not nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate within 120 days, judges of the federal district court can appoint an interim until the vacancy is filled. Essayli has not been confirmed by the U.S. Senate —something that generally requires a degree of bipartisan support. California Sens. Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla have criticized Essayli’s appointment.

Stay up to date with the latest news from AP.

Follow on

Advertisement

Essayli was appointed as interim U.S. attorney in March, several months after former President Joe Biden’s appointee to the job resigned. Just shy of the 120-day mark, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi appointed him as First Assistant U.S. Attorney and said he would have the authority to serve as acting U.S. attorney upon a vacancy in the role. He then resigned as interim U.S. attorney.

The government has argued that he can do so under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998, which Congress passed specifically to regulate the temporary filling of executive branch vacancies that require presidential appointment and Senate confirmation.

Seabright, however, said that provision of the law only applies if the previous U.S. Attorney dies, resigns, or is otherwise incapacitated.

The lawsuit seeking to disqualify Essayli was brought by three men facing federal firearms charges. They sought to have their indictments dismissed. Seabright ruled the indictments can proceed.

In Nevada, the same judge that disqualified Chattah ruled last week that he was pausing his earlier ruling while a federal appellate court weighed an appeal from the U.S. Department of Justice, allowing her to remain temporarily involved in the cases being prosecuted by her office. An appellate court heard arguments on Monday regarding Habba’s appointment as well, questioning government lawyers on their maneuvers to keep Habba in place.

Advertisement

Continue Reading

World

Trump visits South Korea as he attempts to secure billions in investment

Published

on

Trump visits South Korea as he attempts to secure billions in investment

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!

U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday met with South Korean President Lee Jae Myung in the city of Gyeongju – the final stop on his Asia tour aimed at securing new investment deals. 

“The Republic of Korea is a cherished American friend and a close ally. And as we can see in this beautiful city, it’s truly one of the most remarkable nations anywhere on earth,” Trump said ahead of the meeting at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) CEO Summit, adding that South Korea’s president “is a terrific person.”

During their bilateral meeting, Lee asked Trump to consider allowing South Korea to access fuel for conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarines – a long-standing restriction under a U.S. nonproliferation deal. 

Trump’s previous stops during his trip included visits to Malaysia and Japan.

Advertisement

After his visit to Japan yielded roughly $490 billion in investment commitments, Trump said a trade deal with South Korea has proven more challenging as he seeks an additional $350 billion in U.S. investments. Trump predicted total new investment could reach upwards of $22 trillion in investments by the end of his first year back in the White House.

TRUMP’S FOCUS TURNS TO JAPAN AND SOUTH KOREA AS ASIA TRIP CONTINUES

U.S. President Donald Trump and South Korean President Lee Jae Myung attend a high honor ceremony at the Gyeongju National Museum in Gyoeongju, South Korea. (AP)

“I figure that we’ll probably be at 20 or 21, maybe even $22 trillion of investments coming into our country by the end of the first year of my second term,” the president said. “And we had a tremendously successful first term. We had the strongest economy in history for our country, the strongest we ever had. But this is, I think, blowing it away. We have a great policy. We have some very good things happening.”

“Around the world, we’re signing one trade deal after another to balance our relationships on the basis of reciprocity,” Trump added. “I’ve signed groundbreaking agreements with Malaysia, Cambodia, Japan, and our deal with the Republic of Korea will be finalized very soon. These agreements will be incredible victories for all of us, because everyone is better off when we have stable partnerships not plagued by chronic problems and imbalances.”

Advertisement

Speaking to business executives at the event, Trump described an “economic revolution” underway in the United States. The president urged the executives not to listen to “small minds with no vision,” pledging to “build, trade, prosper and thrive together.” 

TRUMP ANNOUNCES MEETING WITH XI JINPING AT SOUTH KOREA APEC SUMMIT SCHEDULED FOR NEXT MONTH

President Donald Trump shakes hands with South Korean President Lee Jae Myung

U.S. President Donald Trump shakes hands with South Korean President Lee Jae Myung as they attend a high honor ceremony at the Gyeongju National Museum in Gyoeongju, South Korea. (AP)

Trump later received South Korea’s Grand Order of Mugunghwa – the nation’s highest honor – along with a replica of a royal crown from the ancient Silla Kingdom, symbolizing Seoul’s recognition of his prior diplomatic efforts. 

Trump’s visit coincided with new tensions on the Korean Peninsula after North Korea said it fired sea-to-surface cruise missiles off its western coast. 

“He’s been launching missiles for decades, right?” Trump said of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Advertisement

Trump reiterated his willingness to meet with the North’s leader, saying, “We had a really good understanding of each other.” 

President Donald Trump waves

U.S. President Donald Trump waves after speaking at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation CEO summit in Gyeongju, South Korea. (AP)

In a separate speech, South Korea’s leader warned against rising protectionism, urging global cooperation on trade – a message that contrasted with Trump’s America First pitch. 

Trump also previewed his upcoming meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

“You know that President Xi of China is coming here tomorrow, and we’re going to be, I hope, making a deal,” Trump said. “I think we’re going to have a deal. I think it’ll be a good deal for both. And that’s really a great result.”

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

Advertisement

“That’s better than fighting and having all sorts of problems. And, you know, no reason for it,” he added.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Continue Reading

World

Viktor Orbán in push to reverse Trump’s sanctions on Russian oil

Published

on

Viktor Orbán in push to reverse Trump’s sanctions on Russian oil

Published on
Updated

Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said he will discuss new US sanctions on Russian oil with President Trump in Washington next week.

The US slapped sanctions on Russia’s two largest oil companies, Rosneft and Lukoil, last week, with the former also being blacklisted by the EU.

“We are discussing how to build a sustainable system for my country’s economy, because Hungary is heavily dependent on Russian oil and gas. Without them, energy prices will skyrocket, causing shortages in our supplies,” Orbán told the Italian newspaper La Repubblica during a visit to Rome.

Advertisement

When asked if Trump went too far and had made a mistake by targeting Russia’s energy sector, Orbán said that he had gone too far, adding that Hungary will find a “way out” from the sanctions.

Landlocked Hungary imports most of its fossil fuels from Russia, despite repeated calls from the United States and the European Union to end its dependency on energy from Moscow, an issue which has become a point of tension.

The impact of US sanctions

Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said the government is examining the possible impact of the sanctions, which the US says will stay in place until Russian President Vladimir Putin shows a genuine willingness to negotiate a ceasefire in Ukraine.

“As for the American sanctions, since their entry into force is still some way off, these measures have not yet caused any loss or difficulties in terms of our energy imports from Russia,” Szijjártó said at a press conference in Budapest on Monday.

Separately, the European Commission said the US sanctions do not pose any immediate danger for the security of supplies into Europe, as member states are required to hold oil reserves for 90 days.

Advertisement

“Last week’s decision obviously might have an impact and we want to make sure that our member states are prepared, that they have a plan and we are here to support them with this,” Anna-Kaisa Itkonen, European Commission spokesperson, told journalists.

Pressure mounts on Slovakia and Hungary

Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the EU has made several attempts to cut its energy dependency on Russia.

In 2022, the bloc banned the purchase of Russian pipeline oil, with Hungary and Slovakia receiving exemptions. However, while there is no ban on Russian pipeline gas, the EU plans to phase out all fuel imports by the end of 2027 in the bloc.

Max Whitaker, US Ambassador to NATO, talking to Fox News on Sunday, criticised Hungary for not doing enough to end dependency.

Last week the US opted to sanction the Russian energy sector for the first time since the war in Ukraine started.

Advertisement

“Hungary, unlike many of its neighbours, has not made any plans and has not taken any active steps. We are going to work with their neighbours, like Croatia and other countries, that can help them to wind them off. And that pipeline will most likely shut off in the coming years,” Whitaker said, referring to the Druzhba oil pipeline.

Slovakia will have to present a plan to decouple from Russian energy too, he added.

According to the Centre for the Study of Democracy, Hungary further increased its energy dependency since the start of the full-scale invasion.

In 2022, 61% of Hungary’s crude oil needs were imported from Russia. This year so far, it has risen to 92%, while Slovakia depends almost entirely on Russia for oil imports.

Advertisement
Continue Reading

Trending