Salt crusts crackle underfoot as Habibullah Khatti walks to his mother’s grave to say a final goodbye before he abandons his parched island village on Pakistan’s Indus delta.
Seawater intrusion into the delta, where the Indus River meets the Arabian Sea in the south of the country, has triggered the collapse of farming and fishing communities.
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“The saline water has surrounded us from all four sides,” Khatti told AFP from Abdullah Mirbahar village in the town of Kharo Chhan, around 15 kilometres (9 miles) from where the river empties into the sea.
As fish stocks fell, the 54-year-old turned to tailoring until that too became impossible with only four of the 150 households remaining.
“In the evening, an eerie silence takes over the area,” he said, as stray dogs wandered through the deserted wooden and bamboo houses.
Kharo Chan once comprised around 40 villages, but most have disappeared under rising seawater.
The town’s population fell from 26,000 in 1981 to 11,000 in 2023, according to census data.
