By Our Correspondent
Dhangadhi, Jan. 4: Madgari Chaudhary, wife of Atwari Chaudhary, has been seriously ill. A patient of uterus cancer, Atwari has been unable to wake up from bed for a year. After the Forest Division Office demolished their hut by using bulldozers, Chaudhary is worried as to how he could save his ailing wife from the freezing cold.

“We had built a hut on the bank of the jungle after a flood displaced us from our settlement. Now, the forest division office demolished our hut,” said Chaudhary, a flood victim of Himmatpur in Bhajani Municipality.
“I am compelled to keep my sick wife in a tarpaulin in freezing cold like this,” lamented Chaudhary. A flood in the Mohana River had swept away his four kathhas of land and home last year. After being homeless he was compelled to live on the premises of Himmatpur Community Forest.

All the flood victims are staying under the tarpaulin in the community forest.
Dulari Chaudhary, 65, is living under a black tent. Due to the freezing cold, bed gets wet and Chaudhary cannot sleep well throughout the night.
“We are poor and we do not have a warm place and clothes to keep ourselves warm. Our body shivers with cold all the time, especially at night,” said Chaudhary. “We feel happy only during sunny days,” he added. "The flood snatched away our happiness."

Not only the families of Atwari and Dulari, but also 16 other families are facing the same problem at the pea of winter.
After the flood affected life of people here, 18 such families were living on the premises of Himmatpur Community Forest. However, the Forest Sub-Division Office demolished the huts built by the flood victims, saying that they were encroaching the land.

It is very difficult for us to keep children and elderlies safe in such a cold weather, said Birma Chaudhary.
The flood victims are trying to keep themselves warm by making fires. They are asking for new settlement with the government. “The government should manage a settlement for us, otherwise we have no place to go,” said Birma.

We have no other option but to continue living here, said Atwari, adding that whatever the officials of the forest division office did they were compelled to stay here. Unless the government assigns another place to relocate us, we are compelled to stay here, he added. Due to the flood in the Mohana River, the victims were displaced in July last year.
Before July, there was a settlement where now flows the Mohana River.