Karachi : City of Death
Bertrand Meunier
Agence VU' pour Newsweek
Since the 1980s Pakistan’s largest city, Karachi has been known as the “City of Death” as a result of destabilizing ethnic and political violence. Two years ago, the densely populated port city of 14 million was rocked by two major terrorist attacks and the arrest of several Islamic militant figures hiding in the chaotic megalopolis. Suicide bombs are a regular occurrence as well as violent and often deadly disputes between Sunni and Shia Muslims. In the past two decades the city has been fraught with shootings, kidnappings, looting, arson and assassinations.
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Some 400,000 new immigrants, mainly the rural poor, continue to arrive each year, despite the 12% unemployment rate. With military spending and debt servicing eating up some 85% of the national budget, leaving less than 10% for health, education and development, the national government is not about to bail the city out. The countries welfare system is in a virtual state of collapse. With ethnic tension, poverty, violence and corruption, the people of Karachi are struggling to survive.
Over the course of several months, initially on assignment for Newsweek magazine, Bertrand Meunier managed to capture this dark enigmatic city. These photographs tell the story of a city thick with tension, uncertainty and profound sadness.
