Stranded Souls, Silent Skies

 Stranded Souls, Silent Skies

By Khizar Hayat Khan

A group of families — children clutching their mothers’ hands, men waving helplessly — stand marooned on a shrinking island of rocks. Behind them, a lone tree bends in surrender. Around them, the Swat River roars — not as a source of life, but a sentence of death.

Above them? Silence. No helicopters. No boats. No state.

This image is not from a warzone, but from a part of Pakistan that sings in tourism ads and development speeches. Swat, the so-called Switzerland of the East, is now witnessing another tragedy — not just of nature, but of neglect.

This photo captures more than a moment; it exposes a pattern. Every year, when rains swell the rivers, the same stories surface: people trapped, children lost, families wiped out. And yet, every year, our response system arrives too late — if it arrives at all.

The photo asks a haunting question: Where is the state?

We know helicopters exist. We see them often — drying cricket grounds, hovering over political rallies, escorting the elite from point A to point B. But for these people, fighting for survival on a mound of stones, they might as well be myths.

This isn’t just a climate emergency. It’s a human rights crisis. It’s a moral failure. When a nation fails to protect its most vulnerable, it forfeits the right to call itself strong.

In Swat, where roads crumble and bridges fall with the first heavy rain, what remains is community resilience. But bravery shouldn’t be the only plan. A child shouldn’t rely on luck while the government issues yet another “high alert.”

This photograph deserves to haunt those in power. Not just for its tragedy — but for what it says about whose lives truly matter.