InAsia

The Crisis and the Cracks—Pakistan’s Covid-19 Experience at Taftaan

September 30, 2020 The Asia Foundation
InAsia
The Crisis and the Cracks—Pakistan’s Covid-19 Experience at Taftaan
Show Notes Transcript

When a Karachi student returning from Iran became Pakistan’s first documented case of Covid-19, the government quickly moved to quarantine thousands of Shia pilgrims at the remote outpost of Taftaan on the Iran-Pakistan border. But Pakistan’s pandemic response soon stumbled in the resource-poor periphery of the borderland. Read the InAsia blog: https://asiafoundation.org/2020/09/30/podcast-the-crisis-and-the-cracks-pakistans-covid-19-experience-at-taftaan/

Azeema (00:00):

This is not a Pakistan problem. Structural inequality will define who your most vulnerable are and your most vulnerable will exist in those cracks, where the crisis will seep through.

John (00:13):

The crisis and the cracks this week on InAsia, from the Asia Foundation, I'm John Reger.

Tracy (00:18):

And I'm Tracy Yang. On February 26, a Karachi student returning from pilgrimage in Iran became Pakistan's first documented case of COVID-19. The government quickly moved to quarantine thousands of returning Shia pilgrims in the remote outpost of Taftaan on the Iran-Pakistan border, but Pakistan's pandemic response soon stumbled in the resource poor periphery of the borderland.

John (00:45):

Our guest today is Azeema Cheema who leads research in Pakistan commissioned by the Asia foundation as part of the cross border local research network, which studies conflict affected border regions in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. Azeema, where are you? And what time is it there?

Azeema (01:01):

It's midnight in Islamabad, Pakistan.

John (01:05):

Thank you for so much for talking to us today or tonight.

Azeema (01:09):

You're very welcome. Thank you for having me.

John (01:11):

Azeema, your essay this week looks at Pakistan's pandemic misadventures in the border town of Taftaan. Where is Taftaan and how did it become a flash point?

Azeema (01:21):

Taftaan is the central, the main border crossing point between Pakistan and Iran. We already had the pandemic wreaking havoc across Iran. And at that time, Pakistan had roughly about 6,000 pilgrims from all across the country who were in Iran and were expected to cross back into Pakistan. Now the government of Pakistan was very aware of this. They were making preparations to receive these pilgrims back into Pakistan, to accommodate them, to quarantine them, and do some sort of vector containment in order to restrict the pandemics' path into the rest of the country. However, Taftaan is a border town with rudimentary infrastructure generally considered a periphery, a rural periphery.

John (02:18):

Kind of an outpost.

Azeema (02:19):

Yes, exactly. And this was going to be the conduit for people traveling in at a time when travelers back to Pakistan from Iran had already been demonstrated as COVID carriers.

Tracy (02:34):

Can you talk a little bit more about those pilgrims, Zaireen?

Azeema (02:38):

Sure. Pakistan is a diverse country with a largely Sunni Muslim population, but there is a Shia minority population as well. And there are annual pilgrimages to sacred shrines in places like Com and Mashhad in Iran. The colloquial term is Irene, which derives from the term Zara, which is to go and witness and pay respect. These groups are generally very well organized. They're traveling in large groups, families, people with children, expected mothers, the elderly, but also this is happening in Balochistan where there has been a 10 security situation for a very long time. Zara over the last few years has been the target of numerous terrorist attacks. And so there has been a genuine impetus to security this particular border and a genuine need for it. So it becomes an administrative challenge.

John (03:44):

Well, so here you have 6,000 religious pilgrims who find themselves in the midst of an outbreak of COVID 19, and now they want to return to their home country through the remote border crossing of Taftaan. Did the Pakistan government take adequate steps to receive them?

Azeema (03:59):

Pakistan is neither the worst reforming nor the worst effected country in the region. And the government of Pakistan did order a lockdown. They did order a closure of all the borders. They did concentrate all early efforts towards vector containment, which means screening measures at airports and other border crossing points on foot. However, Pakistan suffers from a number of cracks, pre-existing fragility and disruption like COVID exposes all of these issues. The first crack is what we see existing between the national government and the provincial government compared with other provinces of Pakistan. Balochistan has always had the least amount of resources to work with. So historically there's been some measure of neglect here and there was concern in the federal government that the province would be unable to cope without additional resources and without assistance. But the interviewee we spoke with told us that while supplies were promised, many of the supplies never materialized on the ground.

            So we have these tired and exhausted Zaireen arriving at the top-down gate. And then they're being moved into large compounds. The experience was alarming. Many of them stated the conditions of the camp when they arrived a surprise at those conditions, they're surprised at the lack of food and sanitation facilities, the only medical facility housed in a shipping container was placed outside the camps. So, people inside the camp who needed medical facilities, there were only one or two designated people from among them who could even access the medical facility outside. But one of the most alarming aspects of the situation, as quoted to us one camp resident, he said he spent 22 days in the camp. For 18 days there was no testing. On the 19th day, they did a swab test and he tested positive.

Tracy (06:12):

You said, things got so bad that both the Young Doctors Association of Zara and the Lady Medical Officers refused to be deployed to Taftaan.

Azeema (06:23):

Yes. And this is the second crack. Provinces in Pakistan have a constitutional responsibility to provide healthcare, but they lack the resources. So the provincial government of Zara could not provide fundamentals like personal protective equipment to their stuff, or proper healthcare infrastructure and a healthcare service to the rural periphery. There was a dialogue, there wasn't enough PPE available to doctors and the doctors refused to go. And that led to protests. And we saw unsavory images of doctors being arrested in the middle of a pandemic, but it was just a breakdown over a negotiation on a lack of research.

John (07:06):

Now you also write about a third crack between citizens and the state. Where the crisis really threatened to ignite historical sectarian grievances.

Azeema (07:15):

There was a separate dimension to this conflict, which was sectarian. We saw the Zaireen expressing in very bold terms and in sectarian vernacular how they felt about their confinement and the fact that, generally, the border processing has been, hasn't been without incident over the last three, four years. As a journalist who was a frequent traveler reported to us, he said, "I once spent three days in the crowd at Taftaan trying to get into Iran. And then there was a scuffle and they used batons and I fell". And so people have these experiences and they formed the body of how people perceive the state's treatment of them. The state's treatment options. There's lots of video evidence. You know, one angry returnee detained in Taftaan in 2017 was on the phone and he was arguing for release. And he said, we are Pakistanis. We have committed no crime.

            If our crime is that we went for [foreign language 00:08:23] , then yes, we have committed a crime and we will do it all our lives. So you can see the indignation in these expressions. We saw a lot of cooperation between the state and desiring at Taftaan, but the narrative began to build because what became clear very soon was that conditions in the camp were falling. And we had certain spoilers and conflict promoters put these narratives out there, which blame the Shia for carrying the Corona virus into Pakistan. Now this was countered very quickly. So the independent media warned against it, a Shia media trial, state media, or, and the government officials also put out statements trying to, calm this down, but there was anger. And then of course that anger and that sort of resentment, that feeling of being like down then carries over into their communities. And like I said, they come from all over Pakistan.

John (09:28):

Circling back then to your essay, the crisis and the cracks, what are the cracks that the COVID 19 crisis revealed?

Azeema (09:36):

Dysfunction in the system in terms delivery mechanisms, in processes, the state was trying to cope with a crisis that it could not possibly have been prepared for. So preexisting fragility in systems, preexisting inequality of the periphery determined how well the state was going to be able to do. So, these are the cracks that have the ability to derail what I call even the best laid plans.

Tracy (10:06):

Is there anything other larger lessons that can be learned by this perfect storm of errors and misfortunes?

Azeema (10:17):

The contagion highlights the importance of inclusion, leave no one behind. This is not a Pakistan problem. COVID-19 has highlighted that structural inequality is a problem, in any context. This is where we can dispense with the developed country; developing country. Narrative structural inequality will define who your most vulnerable and your most vulnerable will exist in those cracks where a crisis will seep through.

John (10:51):

Azeema Cheema, thank you so much for joining us today on the podcast.

Azeema (10:55):

Well thank you for having me. I do appreciate it.

Tracy (10:58):

That's all for this edition of inAsia. Be sure to visit this weeks inAsia blog, where Azeema has written at greater length on the crisis and the cracks until next time. I'm Tracy Yang.

John (11:10):

And I'm John Reger. Thanks for listening.