I know the water is not good. The Red Cross and Red Crescent have begun to bring food to the most destitute. Rice, flour and oil supplement a meagre diet. Nina Nobel of the Red Cross says that she hopes it will help to reduce some diseases. The immune system becomes weakened due to poor nutrition.
People become very vulnerable.
You have these big extended families living in very poor conditions right now and the tuberculosis spreads very quickly. The children of Muynak have made a playground out of the wrecks of ships which might have provided food and a future for them. As I walked with Togian Ibragimova, Muynak's deputy mayor, through the ship graveyard, the rusting remains of their fishing fleet, she expressed the concern that no one would ever learn from what has happened to the Aral Sea and its people. Human beings can be very stupid. Some 3000 miles from here in The Hague, the World Water Forum will endeavour to change Ms Ibragimova's bleak vision of the future for millions worldwide.