Stories of loss and despair echo at Sikkim relief camps

For the past five days, her life has been the same. Every day, she wakes up in the auditorium of the government senior secondary school in Singtam in south-east Sikkim.

- Joydeep Thakur

Every day she asks the same questions, the answer only becoming inescapably clearer. She asks the authorities if they have heard of her father. Every day, they tell her they haven’t. Joshna Khan is one of 630 residents that now call the school their home, living in one of the largest relief camps dot the mountains after the flash floods that tore through Sikkim on Wednesday left 82 dead, and 105 missing. But even among shared tragedy, Khan’s grief is solitary. She is the only one among the residents that has lost a family member.

Overall, Sikkim now has 28 relief camps, that house around 6,487 people. The district with the most such camps is Gangtok, with 10 camps.

At 2 am on Wednesday, the flood waters swirled around Khan’s home in Lal Bazaar area, and they had very little time to save themselves. “We all rushed out of our houses to reach higher ground. But in the melee I lost my father. He was washed away by the flood waters. I lost my mother a few years ago and now he is gone. I have been left alone,” Khan said.

Bereaved and lonely, Khan stares at an uncertain future. “I was unable to bring anything out – documents, clothes, money. My house at Lal Bazar is gone. I don’t know where to go or what to do after this. I will not be able to stay here forever,” she said. On her body, are the same clothes she escaped her home in.