In the shattered village of Batai, nestled in the flood-ravaged Buner district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, a mass funeral held in Buner brought hundreds together on a scorching Saturday morning, 16 August 2025. Mourners gathered on the banks of the Pachay stream, standing on flattened cornfields now blanketed with thick alluvial deposits, to bid farewell to over 40 souls lost to the catastrophic flash floods that tore through the region the previous day. The air was heavy with sorrow as bodies, draped in blood-stained shrouds, lay in solemn rows, some cots bearing two corpses. The community, united in grief, struggled to process the scale of the tragedy that had reshaped their lives overnight.
A Village in Ruins
The floods left a trail of destruction from Qadir Nagar to Beshonai, transforming vibrant hamlets into landscapes of rubble and despair. In Beshonai, once a lively village of 120 homes, massive boulders now bury what remains. Locals, like Kamran Khan, clawed at the debris with bare hands, driven by the faint hope of finding loved ones. Kamran, who lost several relatives, recounted the horror of watching his village vanish in minutes under a torrent of water and rock. Over 80 lives were claimed here alone, with many still unaccounted for, leaving families in anguished limbo. The absence of government aid, even 24 hours after the disaster, deepened the community’s sense of abandonment.
Survivors’ Stories of Loss
Among the mourners, Mukhtiar Khan stood quietly by the rows of bodies, his eyes hollow with shock. A resident of Qadir Nagar, he lost 11 family members, including nephews, nieces, and a daughter-in-law. “Seven of my family are here for their final rites,” he whispered, his voice steady but heavy with resignation. Across the district, stories of loss echoed: Anwar Khan reported 12 missing relatives, while Haider Ali spoke of a village forever altered, its people wandering in stunned silence among the ruins. The floods, which began in Naray Ghar and roared down the slopes, spared little, leaving behind snapped power lines, wrecked cars, and shops filled with metres of mud.
A Community’s Resilience
Despite the overwhelming grief, the people of Buner showed remarkable resolve. At the funeral, local elder Jehan Bar rallied the crowd, urging them to continue searching for bodies still trapped under debris. “We will not leave them this way,” he declared, his voice cutting through the morning heat. Volunteers from groups like the Al-Khidmat Foundation worked tirelessly, navigating treacherous paths to reach isolated areas like Malik Pur and Beshonai. In Pir Baba Bazaar, the district’s commercial heart, shopkeepers like Jamroz Ali salvaged what they could from their mud-filled businesses, recounting narrow escapes as floodwaters surged without warning.
Anger at Official Absence
Frustration simmered among survivors as they noted the lack of government support. Teachers Irshad Ali and Akbar Zada voiced the community’s anger over this mass funeral, pointing out that while helicopters were readily available for military operations, none had arrived for relief efforts. Locals relied on their own efforts and aid from welfare organisations, with police barricades limiting access to devastated areas. The shrine of Pir Baba, a revered spiritual site, stood as a poignant backdrop to the destruction, its adjacent mosque flooded, mirroring the chaos that engulfed the bazaar.
A Call for Solidarity on This Mass Funeral
The mass funeral held in Buner was more than a farewell; it was a testament to a community’s strength in the face of unimaginable loss. As villagers carried the bodies for burial and women said their private goodbyes, the resolve to rebuild flickered amid the grief. The floods of 16 August 2025 have left scars that will linger, but the spirit of Buner endures. The mass funeral held in Buner will remain a haunting memory, a call for solidarity, and a reminder of the urgent need for preparedness in the face of nature’s fury.
Published in SouthAsianDesk, August 17h, 2025
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