Cold wave deepens hardship for flood-affected families in Kanchanpur

Kanchanpur: Flood-affected families living in the Bantariya camp of Shuklaphanta Municipality-12 in Kanchanpur are facing severe difficulties due to the cold wave.

The families, who have been living in thatched huts directly exposed to the cold, are struggling with an acute shortage of warm clothes for wearing and sleeping. As temperatures drop sharply, they are increasingly worried about how to protect children and elderly members from the biting cold.

Seventy-year-old Vasudev Rana said the winter has become extremely difficult for the 19 families who have been temporarily living in the forest area for the past one and a half decades. “Since the cold intensified, we have not been able to sleep at night,” he said. “We neither have warm clothes to protect ourselves nor proper bedding.”

He expressed concern that children and elderly people are forced to spend nights inside huts by lighting fires to keep warm. All families in the camp depend on daily wage labor for survival. Mahadev Rana said that their meager income makes it impossible to afford warm clothes. He added that despite requesting donor agencies to arrange winter clothing, they have not received any assistance so far and have been relying on open fires to survive the cold.

Rajkumar Rana of the camp said, “Although we hear slogans that no one should go hungry or unclothed after the republic, for us these remain mere words.” He complained that no agency has taken notice of their plight, even though they have been living in hardship near the forest for nearly one and a half decades after being displaced by floods.

The families became landless after a devastating flood in the Banhara River in 2064 BS washed away their houses and property. They were forced to settle in the camp after their homes in the former Dekhtabhuli VDC were destroyed and their land turned into wasteland. Once landowners, these families were reduced to laborers and now say they are neglected by both nature and the state.