Pakistanis flee floods by camel, bull and donkey

Thousands of people thronged routes out of Shikarpur, a centuries-old city of half a million people in Sindh that lies close to the swollen Indus river, where fears are high that banks will soon burst as rains continue to lash down.

Heaving their belongings -- bags of flour and wheat, kitchen utensils and electrical appliances -- on their heads and shoulders and in carts, the crowd abandoned the city that had once been the province's financial hub.

"There is havoc and panic in the city, everybody is leaving," said Naseem Khatun, a 45-year-old farm worker who had moved her family to Shikarpur believing it was safe from the floods that have crippled the country.

"Again we are leaving, we do not know where we will go," she told AFP as she wheeled her few home items along in a tractor trolley.

Provincial officials in charge of managing the disaster said that several villages in Sindh were already under water, but no lives had been lost.

With the country's worst ever floods sweeping south, those uprooted from their homes in Sindh have been moved to government buildings, schools and tents.
Thousands of villagers were being evacuated from remote districts of northwest Sindh, with helicopters buzzing overhead.

Officials called on residents of Shikarpur through mosque megaphones to abandon their homes and get out the city, but people complained they had no means of transport to help them escape.

Families mounted on trucks, cars and tractors joined those sitting in carts behind farm animals trying to get out.

"This is the only property I own," said 25-year-old Javed Sarki, as he sat with a few belongings with his wife and two children behind his donkey."I'm just trying to save my family, it's the only priority."

"We are just peasants working in the fields. We were told that the flood is coming so we've left to save our lives," said Shams-Ud-din, 35, on a bull cart.
The city's administrative chief, Saeed Mangnejo, said the mass evacuation was urgently under way as four canals surrounding the city were under increasing pressure from rising water levels in the Indus.

"It is the toughest challenge to save the city from looming water," Mangnejo told AFP.