[ad_1]
INTERNATIONAL HELP
The disaster could not have come at a worse time for Pakistan, where the economy is in free fall.
Appealing for international help, the government has declared an emergency.
Aid flights have arrived in recent days from Turkey and the UAE, while other nations including Canada, Australia and Japan have also pledged assistance.
The United Nations issued a flash appeal on Tuesday for US$160 million to fund emergency aid.
“Pakistan is awash in suffering,” UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said in a video message for the launch of the appeal in Islamabad and Geneva.
“The Pakistani people are facing a monsoon on steroids – the relentless impact of epochal levels of rain and flooding.”
He said the scale of needs, with millions of people forced from their homes, schools and health facilities destroyed and livelihoods shattered by the climate catastrophe, required the world’s collective and prioritised attention.
Guterres said the US$160 million he hoped to raise with the appeal would provide 5.2 million people with food, water, sanitation, emergency education and health support.
Pakistan was already desperate for international support and the floods have compounded the challenge.
Prices of basic goods – particularly onions, tomatoes and chickpeas – are soaring as vendors bemoan a lack of supplies from the flooded breadbasket provinces of Sindh and Punjab.
There was some relief on Monday when the International Monetary Fund approved the revival of a loan programme for Pakistan, releasing an initial US$1.1 billion.
Makeshift relief camps have sprung up all over Pakistan – in schools, on motorways and in military bases.
In the northwestern town of Nowshera, a technical college was turned into a shelter for up to 2,500 flood victims.
They sweltered in the summer heat with sporadic food aid and little access to water.
“I never thought that one day we will have to live like this,” said 60-year-old Malang Jan.
“We have lost our heaven and are now forced to live a miserable life.”
[ad_2]
