CHILDREN with distended stomachs and families sitting in the shattered debris of their homes – Oxford city councillor Saj Malik said he wept as he ran a desperate aid mission to his former home town, which has been devastated by the catastrophic Pakistani floods.

Mr Malik, 42, county councillor for East Oxford and city councillor for Cowley Marsh, paid for his own trip to the shattered district of Rajanpur on September 12, to distribute £12,000 in aid raised by two of Oxford’s mosques.

The married father-of three from Cowley, who has been at the forefront of massive fundraising drives by the Madinah Mosque in Stanley Road and the Bangladesh Mosque in Cowley Road, contacted a local Rajanpur wholesaler before he left Oxford, to arrange supplies for 1,000 emergency family ration packs.

Working with his brothers Aqeel and Jamil, who live in Rajanpur, he then set about the mammoth task of identifying the local families most at need before distributing the money raised in Oxford.

Mr Malik said: “As I flew in over Pakistan I saw huge swathes of water, which looked like reservoirs, but were in fact floodwater.

“I knew the damage was going to be shocking.

“In Rajanpur district alone more than 22,000 homes have collapsed, 120,000 acres of rice and cotton have been ruined and 41 people have died.

“My brothers picked me up in a jeep and as we travelled towards the village of Kot Mithen, where they live, I saw the badly damaged roads were lined with people. Some had been given shelters by charities, but most were just trying to find shelter in debris. Children were sitting in the middle of complete devastation.”

The 10-mile journey took Mr Malik and his brothers four hours.

He continued: “My brother Aqeel told me that when the flood waters came into Kot Mithen there was so little time to act that it was like Armageddon, with people grabbing what they could and running for their lives.

“Many people, like my brother, had to go and search for their children.

“It was pandemonium. It must have been terrifying.”

“Now, because the land is so flat in Rajanpur, even six weeks after the floods, great lakes of water are still just lying there, and some people are drinking this water.

“I touched the distended stomach of one child who had been drinking dirty water and it was as hard as a rock.

“I thought of my children lying at home in Oxford in their warm, safe beds and I wept.”

Within hours of arriving in Pakistan, Mr Malik and his brothers sprang into action. A local supplier had been primed to supply them with rice, flour and other basic supplies to fill 1,000 emergency ration packs, which would last a family between 10 and 15 days.

Mr Malik’s brothers had also identified the poorer areas of the district where aid had been limited, and families were asked to come and show their identification cards to qualify for ration packs.

Mr Malik said: “I knew before I got there that if we just turned up with rations, there would be chaos. We also wanted to be sure that we were getting food to the people who really needed it most.

“So we photocopied the ID cards of people who still had them and my brothers checked out people’s situations and then the local police inspector helped us distribute the packs.

“Money we had left over at the end was then given out to families, between £20 and £50 to each so they could buy their own food and supplies.”

Mr Malik spent two weeks distributing aid.

He said: “Every night I would return to my brother’s house very weak of spirit. I would cry openly at the things I saw.

“This was where I grew up and where I would still be, had I not found a better life in Oxford. Those suffering children could have been my children.

“Each night I would phone and talk to my wife and three children, and the little ones would ask how many children I had helped that day.

“I tried not to cry on the phone but since getting back to Oxford I have found myself suddenly breaking down while driving in my taxi, as I remember the suffering I saw.”

The floods, which struck Pakistan in August, have killed at least 1,600 people and displaced more than 14 million.

Mr Malik said: “It fills my heart with pride to see how much money is being donated both in Oxford and across Great Britain.

“But I would urge people to keep on giving to end these people’s suffering as soon as possible.”

l To donate to the Disasters Emergency Fund, call 0370 606 0900, go to dec.org.uk, donate over the counter at any post office or high street bank, or email Mr Malik at sajjad.malik@ oxfordshire.gov.uk