At Mayur Vihar camp, one toilet for over 4,000 people

Rows of tarpaulin tents and makeshift shelters stretch across the Mayur Vihar flood relief camp, now home to over 4,000 displaced people. The camp is overcrowded, every inch occupied by families who have lost abodes and belongings to the floods.

Children run about barefoot, chasing each other through narrow lanes between tents, while adults sit or lie on charpoys and mats, waiting for the next round of food, water or supplies to be distributed.

“There is only one toilet for all of us,” said Maya, a 35-year-old woman at the camp who was displaced after the Yamuna water submerged her jhuggi built on the floodplains. “Most people go out in the open. Women and girls have no privacy. It is very difficult for us,” she said.

Others nodded in agreement. “The toilet smells very bad. We can’t even stand near it,” said Shanti Devi, another woman at the camp. Rekha, a young mother with an infant in her arms, said: “By the time we get our turn, it is so dirty that I prefer not to go at all.”

When The Tribune correspondent asked Neelam from the Civil Defence force, who was supervising food distribution, she said: “There are 152 camps and over 4,000 people are living here.” When asked about the toilet, she said, “Yes, there is only one toilet, but another one will be installed soon.”

Sanitation is a pressing crisis inside the camp. Women spoke of waking up before dawn to relieve themselves far away from the tents, trying to avoid being seen. Bathing is rare, and when possible, it requires long walks to water points already crowded by others.

“I haven’t changed clothes for the past four days,” Mala Devi, another resident, said. “We take baths like this, wearing clothes. There is no space or privacy,” she said.

Menstrual hygiene is even more neglected. Mala said she had no access to sanitary pads this year, unlike the previous floods when some were given after a long wait. “Now I only use cloth,” she said quietly, her two children sitting beside her. “We can’t even wash properly here,” said Poonam, another woman.

Cooking is another daily struggle. “I could not bring my gas,” Mala explained. “No one here could bring all their belongings. Many came with just the clothes they were wearing. When we return, we will find nothing. We will have to start from zero...” she said.

On food, however, Neelam offered a different account: “Food is distributed three times a day —breakfast, lunch and dinner. But many people take it several times, so others miss out. Now, because of the non-governmental organisations (NGOs), there is no lack of food.”

Yet, hunger remains visible. Mala herself recalled fainting a few days ago because she did eat. “I wake up in the dark, at 4 am, to relieve myself in the open, but that they food didn’t arrive till 12 pm, I was so hungry,” she said with tears in her eyes. Someone revived her by handing her food, she said.

Later, in front of this reporter, when a car pulled up to distribute food packets, she ran towards it mid-conversation. Returning with a packet, she apologised softly: “Sharm aati hai aise khaane ke liye bhaagte hue, lekin kya karenge?” (It feels shameful to run like this for food, but what else can we do?)

Medical help is available in the form of medicines at a camp that runs between 11 am and 5 pm. But by 6 pm, when this reporter visited, the benches stood empty. “If someone falls sick in the night, there is nowhere to go,” said Kamla, an elderly woman, pointing to her grandson curled up with fever inside their tent.

Most families here are migrants — farmers and labourers from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh — who settled in Delhi years ago in makeshift houses near the Yamuna floodplains. Their homes and huts were the first to be swallowed by the rising waters.

The Mayur Vihar camp is one among several across the city, all filled beyond capacity. With no clarity on when they can return or rebuild, life inside the camp is reduced to waiting - waiting for food, for water, for medicines and for some sense of normalcy.

As children play amidst the chaos, women like Mala, Maya, Shanti Devi, Rekha, Poonam and Kamla continue to bear the silent burden of survival —without toilets, privacy or basic necessities.