Hunger brings anguish for millions of Pakistanis

By Aftab Borka

THARPARKAR, Pakistan (Reuters) - When Pakistani laborer Mangal Ram's children cry from hunger all he has to offer them is empty promises.

"My kids complain and cry for more food but what can I do?," said Ram, 50, a father of seven who lives in the desert village of Tharparkar, in the southern Pakistani province of Sindh.

"We say 'wait, we'll cook more', what else can we do?" he asks with a shrug.

Ram's anguish is becoming increasingly common in Pakistan where inflation is running at about 20 percent, led by fuel and food prices.

Soaring food prices and shortages of staples mean about 77 million people of Pakistan's 160 million population are food insecure, a 28 percent increase over the past year, according to U.N. World Food Program (WFP) estimates.

The term food insecure means people are unable to get sufficient nutritious food to meet dietary needs.

While there have not been serious food protests in Pakistan, analysts say there is a danger anger could explode in a society that has already fallen prey to Islamist militants bent on bringing down the government.

Ram's village is home to a Hindu community of about 100 families and has only one well and no electricity. Villagers grow barley and vegetables but if the rains fail, so do the crops.

To buy food, villagers have to walk several kilometers (miles) to a road where a bus runs once a day to the town of Mithi.

Isar Chand, 60, a teacher in the one-room village primary school says he has long stopped having breakfast.

"There's no concept of breakfast. Some people drink water, some have tea. We have two meals a day," said Chand.

"We eat roti (unleavened bread) with onion and chili. When there's no rain, we can't have vegetables," he said. "We can't afford to take our sick to hospitals. We simply can't pay for it. They die in pain."

At times, villagers said they have nothing to eat but rab, a tasteless gruel of coarsely ground wheat mixed with water.

Chand said many villagers had been forced into debt, even those who leave to work as laborers.

"The biggest problem is rising prices," he said.