Pakistan, India and people’s responsibility

Relief work in the districts of Jaffarabad and Nasirabad in Balochistan. Photo: UNOCHA

For a month the government of India, aided by its media and propaganda units (urban-centric English language dailies and magazines, and a dangerously partisan group of television channels) has bombarded the Indian public with its view of Pakistan.

This is a view that is full of threat and anger. There is in no communication of the government of India (not from the office of the prime minister of India, not from the cabinet, not from Parliament, not from its major ministries which share concerns, such as water and food, and not from its paid servants, a wastrel gaggle of self-important think-tanks) that says, in effect, yes we understand the troubles your peoples have, for we have the same, and let us find ways to aid one another.

There is plenty of reason to do so.

Let us look first at floods and natural disasters, which India has a great deal of experience in dealing with, both through those government agencies that possess an iota of integrity and through voluntary groups and NGOs. Hundreds of thousands of people displaced by September monsoon flooding in Pakistan have not yet moved back into their homes, according to aid groups. Three of Pakistan’s four provinces were hit, affecting over 4.8 million people and damaging over 630,000 houses, according to the latest situation report by the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA).

Humanitarian Snapshot Pakistan – Complex Emergency and Floods 2012 (as of 18 December 2012). The 2012 monsoon floods affected 4.8 million people, according to the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA). Western Balochistan, southern Punjab and northern Sindh provinces were the worst affected. As of 18 December, more than 774,594 people remain displaced in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa due to a complex emergency that has affected region since 2008. Moreover, 1.7 million refugees require assistance as do many of the 1.3 million people who returned to FATA since 2010. Source: UNOCHA

Three months after the floods, 97 percent of those displaced have returned to their towns and villages. Nearly all of them, however, continue to live in makeshift shelters next to damaged homes. Aid groups and government officials say they still need critical assistance to help them through the winter. In the absence of adequate shelter and provisions, aid workers say, the cold weather in flood-hit areas is likely to put the affected population under more stress. [You can download a full-sized version of the Humanitarian Snapshot map above, from here (png, 1.8MB).]

Next is the matter of population, economic support for a growing population and sustainable alternatives to the ‘growth is best’ nonsense that South Asian ruling cliques foster with the help of their industrialist compradors. Internal pressures in the country with the world’s sixth largest population are likely to get worse before they get better: At 2.03 percent Pakistan has the highest population growth rate in South Asia, and its total fertility rate, or the number of children born per woman, is also the highest in the region, at 3.5 percent. By 2030, the government projects that Pakistan’s population will exceed 242 million.

“The failure to adequately manage demographic growth puts further pressure on the current population, who already lack widespread basic services and social development,” said the IRIN analysis. Pakistan’s health and education infrastructures are poorly funded, and experts have questioned the quality of what is being provided with existing budgets. With a weak economy and low growth, food insecurity and unemployment present further challenges. “The problem is that if you have a population that is illiterate and does not have proper training, a large segment cannot participate meaningfully in the economy,” IRIN quoted economist Shahid Kardar, a former governor of the State Bank of Pakistan, as having said.

A polio worker on the outskirts of Peshawar in Pakistan delivers vaccine drops, but many workers are now too scared to go into the field. Photo: IRIN, Tariq Saeed

And then there is the very worrisome aspect of violence, against the poor and vulnerable as much as against women. I find it a macabre coincidence that during the weeks when polio workers in Pakistan were being shot at and killed, women in various parts of India were being gang-raped and murdered.

Over the past few weeks there has been an upsurge in attacks on aid workers in Pakistan, many of them linked to a national polio eradication campaign in one of the world’s last three countries where the disease remains endemic. In December 2012 the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organization (WHO) suspended their anti-polio vaccination campaign after nine workers were killed in attacks in Karachi and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.

Polio workers, including those working for the UN, were also targeted earlier in 2012. Beyond the polio campaign, aid workers in general are starting to feel more hostility to their work. In an attack on 5 January, two aid workers with Al-Khidmat Foundation, an NGO working in education, were shot dead in the northwestern city of Charsadda. There was similarly no warning when gunmen killed seven aid workers with local NGO Support With Working Solution (SWWS) in the Swabi District of Pakistan’s Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Province on 1 January.

And still the same old tiresome drums continued to beat, as they still do, Look at the reactions from India (and the jingoistic treatment given them by a rabid media):

India Today – “Military encounter on the LoC last week is threatening to erode the hard-fought gains in relaxing trade and visa regimes by India and Pakistan in recent times. The rhetoric is shrill in India, which claims it has been grievously wronged.”

Economic Times – “India has ruled out high-level talks with Pakistan to de-escalate hostilities and normalise bilateral relations, people familiar with the situation said. The position is in line with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s statement…”

Times of India – “India will maintain a tough outlook on Pakistan even as the LoC quietened after a fortnight of bruising skirmishes. At a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) on Thursday, it was agreed that India would not respond immediately…”

BBC – “India’s foreign minister says he will “not rush” into talks with his Pakistani counterpart to defuse military tensions in Kashmir. Salman Khurshid’s remarks came after Hina Rabbani Khar’s call for a dialogue between the two ministers.”

DNA – “India’s army chief threatened to retaliate against Pakistan for the killing of two soldiers in fighting near the border of the disputed region of Kashmir, saying he had asked his commanders there to be aggressive in the face of provocation.”

Lost altogether in this teeth-gnashing mêlée of trouble-making are the efforts made by Pakistani and Indian people, such as the India Pakistan Soldiers Initiative (IPSI) for peace when they met at the Pakistan Red Crescent Society offices in Pakistan. Peace between the peoples of Pakistan and India that has nothing to do with the red-eyed posturing over the Line of Control and over Jammu and Kashmir will be our own responsibility.

Floods in Pakistan displace 5.4 million

A man carries a child through the flood waters in Digri, Sindh province. Southern Pakistan has been struck by severe monsoon floods 12 months after last year's devastating flood emergency that affected most of the country. Photo: IRIN / UNICEF Warrick Page

Torrential monsoon rains have triggered severe flooding in Pakistan, primarily in Sindh Province, Reliefweb has reported. Before the monsoon season began, forecasts predicted 10% below normal rains for Sindh and the southern parts of the country for the 2011 monsoon season. However, by 10 August, heavy rains began affecting districts of southern Sindh and extended to the northern regions of the province and adjoining areas of south Punjab and north-eastern Balochistan. While this spell lasted till mid-August, another more debilitating and sustained rain spell heavily affected areas across the entire Sindh Province from the end of August until 14 September. Concurrent impact in adjoining vast areas of Balochistan has resulted in serious humanitarian consequences including in South Punjab. In Sindh, the central and southern districts have been the worst affected.

These rains caused widespread breaches in the agricultural and saline water canals, particularly in the Left Bank Outfall Drain, which exacerbated flood impact in Badin, Mirpurkhas and Tharparkar districts, among others. Continued rains have seriously impeded delivery of emergency services and flood impacted mitigation works. Outflow of the draining flood water is compromised due to poor infrastructure and lack of maintenance of the drainage routes. Some parts of Karachi and Hyderabad have also experienced urban flooding. Flood waters are likely to stagnate in most of the affected regions for the foreseeable future.

As the monsoon season continues, the impact upon the population is intensifying with 5.4 million people affected to date. In Sindh, in particular, the concentration is most severe and all 23 districts have been affected to some degree. It is expected that the population will continue to be uprooted from their homes to seek refuge in the short term as more areas are affected. While some are housed in Government appointed shelters, more seek higher ground along bunds and roads. In Balochistan, five districts are affected and notified (considered seriously affected by the national authorities).The Government of Pakistan, through the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) and utilising the Armed Forces’ logistical capacity, has taken the lead in responding to the disaster with the deployment of rescue and life-saving relief operations.

IRIN News has reported that heavy monsoon rain in southern Pakistan is in many ways hitting children worst of all, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, which says five million people are affected. The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) says children are among the most vulnerable in the kind of situation that prevails now in Sindh Province: “Up to 2.5 million children have been affected by severe monsoon floods in southern Pakistan – and with many still recovering from the worst floods in the country’s history just a year ago, UNICEF says more help must reach them fast before the situation worsens.”

Media in Pakistan quoted disaster management authorities in Sindh as saying at least 270 people have been killed in the province’s 23 districts. The provincial government, which has called on international agencies to help, says 1.2 million homes have been washed away, while the aid agency Oxfam has reported that more than 4.2 million acres of land (1,699,680 hectares) has been flooded and 1.59 million acres (643,450 hectares) of standing crops destroyed in Sindh. It also warned the “situation could worsen” over the coming days.

“The nature of this disaster in some ways poses challenges that are more complex than those of 2010,” Kristen Elsby, a spokesperson for UNICEF, told IRIN from Islamabad. She said the main factor in this was that displaced populations were scattered, with many based along roadsides. “We did not know where to go when the rains swept in, took away our goats and destroyed the vegetable crop we had cultivated,” said Azrah Bibi from Badin District. She and her extended family of eight are currently camped along a roadside near the town of Badin. “We saw some people here and joined them. Some people delivered one lot of food, but there has been very little since, and it is hard to cook anyway since we have no facilities other than a fire from bits of timber and scrap,” she said.

Once again, people living in Sindh and nearby provinces have been hit by floods and forced to flee the waters. Photo: IRIN / Abdul Majeed Goraya

“Children, in particular, need access to clean water and also sanitation to prevent illness from breaking out.” Like many others affected by this year’s flood, Azrah Bibi and her husband, Gulab Din, 45, were also affected by the floods of 2010, widely rated as the worst in the country’s history, which partially damaged their home and also their rice crop. “This year things seem equally bad to me. The wrath of Allah has hit us twice,” she said.

Another IRIN report has said that Sindh is facing disaster once more with heavy rains over the past five days, according to the Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA). “Two million people in 15 [out of 23] districts have been affected,” PDMA Director of Operations Sajjad Haider told IRIN. He also said crops had been devastated. Eighty-five people are reported to have died and provincial authorities have announced disaster relief measures, including compensation packages for victims. Haider said crops had been devastated.

“My sugarcane crop, which was ready for harvesting, has been lost. I am still recovering from last year’s losses of crops and livestock. Who knows what will happen now,” said Majeed-ud-Din, 40, from his village in Khairpur, one of the worst-hit districts. In the remote Kohistan District of Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa Province (KP) flash floods triggered by heavy rain last week are now confirmed by District Coordination Officer Syed Imtiaz Ali Shah as having killed at least 33 people. Media reports put the death toll at almost double that figure, with dozens of houses including an entire village swept away by torrents pouring down hillsides.

[See the earlier post, ‘Pakistan floods six months later’]

The UN Rapid Response Plan has said that in Sindh, of the approximately 5.44 million people affected, 49% are women. The number of deaths has increased to 223, of which 60 are women and 37 are children. To date, 665,821 family homes have been damaged or destroyed. Nearly 297,041 people (77,175 women, 139,661 children) are currently living in 2,150 relief sites.

The situation of the people who have been forced to leave their homes is dire, and there is clear evidence of growing humanitarian needs. People have sought refuge on higher ground, along roadsides and on bunds, while others are housed in public shelters. Access to safe drinking water is compromised, although health services are reaching out. Due to damaged infrastructure, however, it is difficult for the population to access existing services and efforts to avoid a major disease outbreak must continue. With an increasing number of people uprooted as a consequence of the situation, ensuring emergency shelter and food for the population is critical.

Across both provinces, Sindh and Balochistan, there has been a significant impact on people’s lives, especially related to the loss of livelihoods, most predominantly those related to agricultural activities. The UN Rapid Response Plan has said that approximately 80% of Sindh’s rural population’s livelihood is dependent upon agricultural activities, such as crops, livestock, fisheries and forestry. According to preliminary information from NDMA, 1.6 million acres of crop area have been destroyed by the floods, and pre-harvest crop losses include rice, vegetables, cotton, and sugarcane. The survival and health of animals in flood-affected areas are at risk due to loss of fodder reserves and animal feeds. These combined effects are likely to severely affect the availability of and access to adequate food for a large proportion of the affected population over the coming months.

The floodwaters have devastated towns and villages, washed away access routes, downed power and communications lines, and inflicted major damage to buildings. Many key roads and major bridges are damaged or destroyed. The prevailing socio-economic conditions along with flood have exacerbated the living conditions of women, men, boys and girls residing in the flood-affected districts. Additionally, female and children are not always able to access basic services or humanitarian aid. Vulnerable people in general are potentially experiencing a higher risk of disease, in addition to the challenges of limited access and mobility.

Calling it agri reconstruction, they pushed suspect seeds into flooded Pakistan

A submerged street near Nowshera, Kyhber-Pakhtunkhwa province. Rising water in dams could create more havoc © Abdul Majeed Goraya/IRIN

In the third week of September 2010, Huma Beg, a journalist who works in Pakistan, sent out this alarm by email: “Dear friends. I raise alarms from Pakistan and solicit your help. Floods and its consequences are bringing many potential issues and challenges at a speed which is not allowing us to debate and make right decisions.”

“A major issue that has come to light is the question of seeds as sowing season in flood and agricultural areas is between 15 Oct to 15 Nov. Monsanto and others have focused on the devastation as an immense opportunity to freely distribute their seeds. Our governments are involved as well.”

“Please raise alarm and assist if you can advice us. We are starting a campaign on “Local seed for local farmer…” using floods as an opportunity to focus on issues of genetically modified seeds. We can later tie up other potential ideas like multi cropping techniques and high value crops…dos and don’ts etc.”

“But for now seeds and non-GMO seeds are on the table. We have no time as ‘others’ are planning to flood the flood with seeds. Please help fast. Kind regards, Huma.”

Now, a release from Grain, Roots for Equity and PANAP (Pesticide Action Network Asia and the Pacific) has confirmed Huma’s worst fears.

A man uses a large cooking pan as a boat near the Reikhbaghwala village in Rajanpur district in Punjab. Photo: IRIN News / Jaspreet Kindra

“In October, a consignment of 2,000 bags of wheat seeds was dispatched to flood-hit farmers by the Mir Khalil-ur-Rahman Foundation (MKRF) and the Imran Khan Flood Relief Fund (IKRF),” says the release. A scheme was launched to provide wheat seeds to farmers owning 25 acres of land in every flood-hit province without discrimination. Under the scheme, certified and good quality seeds were provided to farmers covering 150,000 acres of land. Also since early November, the United States government has provided about US$ 62 million to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to expand an agriculture recovery program to the Province of Balochistan. The program includes provision of seed and fertilizer to flood-affected farmers, to help salvage the winter planting seasons and restore livelihoods for farmers in flood-affected areas.”

“Sindh Chief Minister, Syed Qaim Ali Shah, has said last month that the government’s attention is focused on the rehabilitation of more than seven million flood-affected people and efforts are being made to give Rs100,000 (US$ 1,165) as well as seeds and fertilisers to each survivor family free of cost. There are reports, however, that not all of this is free, as the seeds are being tied to micro-finance packages where fertilisers and services are only provided to small farmers through loans.”

As part of its rehabilitation program, Pakistan’s agriculture ministry entered a deal with Monsanto for a large-scale importation of its Bt Cotton seeds, despite strong opposition from local seed producers and farmers groups. The Seed Association of Pakistan (SAP) has warned the Punjab government to refrain from signing an agreement with Monsanto, believing this will “annihilate national seed companies, besides causing huge financial burden on the national treasury.” The group also believes that the importation of Bt cotton seed by the Pakistani government will cost the country millions of dollars in compensatory and royalty payments.

Rebuilding, replanting in Pakistan

Women in a camp for flood victims in the Balochistan province of southwestern Pakistan cook bread using the fortified wheat flour rations they have been provided by WFP. Picture: World Food Programme/Copyright: Amjad Jamal

A news bulletin from the World Food Programme (WFP) describes in first person the steady rebuilding of lives taking place in Pakistan. More than two months after the devastating August floods, Amjad Jamal, a WFP spokesman in Pakistan, describes how millions of people are at work reclaiming their lives with the help of a massive food assistance effort.

If we were to drive across Pakistan today, from the Swat Valley in the north to Sindh or Balochistan in the south, what would we see? In the Swat Valley where the floodwaters have all dried up or receded, you would see people rebuilding their homes and replanting the many fruit orchards for which it’s famous. In Punjab, the “bread basket” of Pakistan, you’d see whole villages under construction, with a frenzy of activity in the fields as people rush to get their wheat crop planted in time. In Sindh and the sparsely populated Balochistan, there’s still a lot of standing water, with people unable to return to their homes and living in flood camps.

What signs are there that conditions for the flood victims are beginning to improve? Recovery efforts are well underway in the northern parts of the country where people are working hard to get back on their feet. We’re expecting a poor harvest this season, but have high hopes for the one afterwards next summer as the flood waters have left behind a lot of fertile soil.

A family in a flood camp in the Balochistan province of southwestern Pakistan. Picture: World Food Programme/Copyright: Amjad Jamal

What is the biggest remaining challenge to helping people impacted by the floods get back on their feet? Our single biggest challenge is still the sheer number of people affected. Getting help to six million people per month in a country as vast as Pakistan isn’t just costly, it’s complicated. Whereas in Swat Valley it means helping people in isolated mountain valleys store up food for the winter, in the plains of Punjab it means helping them rebuild their irrigation canals and in the southern region of Sindh, reclaiming entire farms from the floodwaters.

In what part of the country is that challenge greatest? The situation in Sindh is particularly worrisome as much of the province is still under water and the farmers there have by and large missed the September planting season. In Balochistan too, the huge distances and widely scattered population are making it difficult to get to everyone. The logistical challenges there are compounded by the near constant threat of insecurity along the border with Afghanistan.

Of all the things you’ve seen or heard over the past few weeks, what has made the biggest impression on you? I was recently in Balochistan where it’s extremely difficult to work because you need a security detail to do practically anything, and met a man of about my age at camp for flood victims who was there with his children. When I asked about his wife, he told me that she had died of a heart attack at the sight of their house crumbling under the floodwaters. He’d promised his children that as soon as the waters receded, they’d go back and rebuild it just like it was before the floods.

Pakistan’s crippling crop and livestock loss

A man uses a large cooking pan as a boat near the Reikhbaghwala village in Rajanpur district in Punjab. Photo: IRIN News / Jaspreet Kindra

ReliefWeb has reported the main points of a new briefing on the Pakistan flood situation by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA):

(1) The emergency continues to unfold in the southernmost province of Sindh. Additional towns and villages in Dadu and Jamshoro districts have been flooded in recent days, as Manchar Lake breached its banks. (2) The health cluster warns of an increased risk of malaria, particularly in the south, in the coming days and weeks. (3) A fully revised floods response plan, the Floods Emergency Response Plan (FERP), will be launched in New York on 17 September by United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Emergency Relief Coordinator Valerie Amos. (4) Though 74% of the requirements set out in the Pakistan Initial Floods Emergency Response Plan (PIFERP) have now been covered, massively scaled up donor support will be needed to meet the increased requirements set out in the FERP.

The Dawn has reported on the growing losses in Pakistan’s crops and livestock, and it makes for dreadful reading.

“The country has suffered a loss of about Rs250 billion in the agricultural and livestock sectors and the flood recovery costs may run into billions of dollars, local experts and a UN spokesman said on Thursday. The Minister for Food and Agriculture, Nazar Mohammad Gondal, said: “It is difficult to give an exact figure, but I agree that the loss of agriculture and livestock runs into billions of rupees. The floods have destroyed crops of cotton, rice, sugarcane and tobacco worth billions of rupees.”

Javed Saleem, a former president of the Crops Protection Association (CPA), and Ibrahim Mughal, chairman of the Pakistan Agricultural Farms Association (PAFA), said over 17 million acres of agricultural land had been submerged and ripe crops of rice, cotton and sugarcane destroyed. Over 100,000 cows, buffaloes, goats, sheep, horses, camels and donkeys have been lost and 3,000 fish farms and 2,000 poultry farms destroyed across the country. “According to an estimate, the loss of cotton crop is of about Rs 155 billion,” Mr Saleem said.

Mohammad Rezwan, 24, swims one hour every other day to get food from at a World Food Programme distribution in Kashmore, Pakistan. Photo: IRIN News

In Punjab alone, a cotton growing area of about one million acres had been affected and crops worth Rs86 billion destroyed, he said. “The whole agricultural belt that includes Jhang, Bhakkar, Rajanpur, Rahimyar Khan and Layyah has been inundated.” Sindh has lost standing crops worth Rs 95 billion over 100,000 acres. Cotton and rice are the major crops destroyed by the floods. In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, over 325,000 acres have been submerged and crops worth Rs 29.6 billion destroyed. Mr Mughal said over one million tons of wheat stock kept in houses had been swept away. “About 1,000 tractors have also been lost,” he said.

The Dawn report said: “According to dealers, the floods have caused a shortage of food items and the prices of fruits and vegetables have increased by 25 to 50 per cent. It is feared that the situation will persist for the whole year till cultivation resumes in flooded areas.”

What will the combination of ruinous losses and soaring prices to do people like Wali Jamote, 50, who fled his village in Nasirabad District early in August, as reported by IRIN News. “I lost everything we had – our tent, the few clothes, shoes and utensils we possess, and worse of all my goats and a camel,” Wali told IRIN. He and his family move every few months in search of fresh pasture: “The animals were all we had. They provided us with milk and cheese, and without them my children have gone hungry.” He said he had been given “no help at all” by any agency.

The cover of Granta magazine No 112 on Pakistan. © Islam Gull, design by Michael Salu

Thousands of people camped out along the main road from Quetta, capital of the southwestern Pakistani province of Balochistan, to Sukkur in Sindh Province, are living in primitive conditions, some with no shelter from the scorching sun. Among them are a particularly vulnerable group: nomads who have lost their livestock. Worse still, Wali and others like him have no idea what the future holds. “Will anyone give me a camel?” he asked. He also said he had no national identity card. “Some soldiers who passed by said I could receive no help without it – but they also said that with no fixed address I was not eligible for one.”

The International Crisis Group has advised that Pakistan’s government and international actors must ensure those in flood-devastated conflict zones are urgently granted the assistance they need to survive and to rebuild lives, without the military dictating rehabilitation and reconstruction efforts. Pakistan: The Worsening IDP Crisis, is the title of a new briefing on internally displaced persons from the International Crisis Group.

It highlights how the country not only faces an unprecedented natural disaster, but also confronts the twin challenges of stabilising a fragile democratic transition and countering violent extremism. The civilian government, already tackling an insurgency, and its institutions, neglected during nine years of military rule, lack the capacity and means to provide sufficient food, shelter, health and sanitation without international assistance. But all sides must ensure community-based civil society groups, credible secular non-governmental organisations, and elected representatives lead the process.

Pakistan ‘superflood’ and relief work

A crowd of people surround a truck loaded with food aid © Eduardo Diaz/UN OCHA

New reportage, contact information of UN and related relief efforts, other resources.

Shelter assistance: Daily updates on distributions to date, coverage, projected coverage and outstanding gaps in terms of shelter assistance are available on the shelter cluster website.

Logistics assistance: The Logistics Cluster is coordinating with the Pakistan Government to include relief items from the humanitarian community. Interested organisations can contact the cluster here.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) is the world’s largest humanitarian organization is running a range of relief programmes in Pakistan.

Outside Islamabad, humanitarian coordination centres (HCCs) continue to operate in Peshawar (covering Khyber Pakhtunkhwa), Multan (covering Punjab) and Sukkur (covering Sindh). Contact details of coordination focal points in each are below. Further information is available on the response website.

United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

OCHA Pakistan, Manuel Bessler, Head of Office bessler@un.org
Maurizio Giuliano, Public Information Officer, UN Pakistan giuliano@un.org +92 300 8502397
Nicki Bennett, Senior Humanitarian Affairs Officer bennett5@un.org +92 300 850 2289
Susan le Roux, Donor Liaison Officer leroux@un.org +92 308 520 5819
Fawad Hussain, Sindh Coordination Centre fawad.hussain@un.org +92 301 854 2495
Hussain Ullah, Punjab Coordination Centre ullah5@un.org +92 301 854 2449
Waheed Anwar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Coordination Centre anwarw@un.org +92 301 854 2449
Alexander Hasenstab, NGO Liaison Officer hasenstab@un.org +92 345 850 9011

Plan Pakistan is coordinating relief work and assistance, donations and material. Contact them here.

UN OCHA’s Pakistan Monsoon Floods Situation Report 18 August 2010 says:

A submerged street near Nowshera, Kyhber-Pakhtunkhwa province. Rising water in dams could create more havoc © Abdul Majeed Goraya/IRIN

Government figures on the number of people directly affected by the floods remain unchanged since the previous situation report, at 15.4 million (National and Provincial Disaster Management Authorities, 18 August). Assessments to establish the degree to which affected populations are in need of immediate humanitarian assistance continue.

The official death toll has risen to 1,475, with 2,052 people reported as injured. Almost 1 million houses are now reported as having been either damaged or destroyed. The south of the country continues to feel the impact of the second wave of floods, with a spur of the Indus River now stretching through Jacobabad district in Sindh into Jaffarabad in Balochistan.

The Meteorological Department warns of a continuing risk of inundation of low-lying areas of Khairpur, Jacobabad, Ghotki, Sukkur, Larkana, Nawabshah, Hyderabad, Naushahro Feroze and Thatta districts of Sindh in the coming days. The Meteorological Department’s Flood Forecasting Division reports that flood levels in the Indus are holding at “extremely high” levels at Guddu and Sukkur in northern Sindh, and rising further downriver at Kotri, as the flood wave continues to move through the province.

Despite the continuing efforts of the Government and the humanitarian community to assist affected populations across the country, large numbers of people are yet to be reached with the assistance they need, particularly in Sindh and Punjab. While funding levels are now improving in key sectors, the continuing threat of flooding in many areas and the manner in which populations are spread across a vast area persist as major operational challenges.

An IRIN news report has said that the chaotic evacuation of towns and villages in flood affected areas means vulnerable people have become separated from male family members, putting them at a disadvantage: The elderly, women and children are often unable to reach the bags or parcels being distributed, especially when mobs besiege the aid trucks. “It’s these vulnerable groups that we need to pay attention to,” said Shahnawaz Khan, disaster risk reduction coordinator for the NGO Plan Pakistan.

Aid organizations have already expressed concern over incidents in which convoys attempting to hand out food have been attacked. A 16 August report by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said looting of aid supplies has been alleged in Muzaffargarh in the southwestern part of Punjab Province, one of the worst-hit of the province’s 36 districts. A Muzaffargarh District administration official who asked not to be named said: “We have hordes of starving people. Things are desperate. There is insufficient aid and people who are weak and vulnerable, including women, are naturally worst affected.”

IFRC Secretary General Bekele Geleta said millions of Pakistanis have been affected by the most destructive disaster in the country’s history. “Survivors have experienced tragedy three times over,” said Geleta, who took part in a distribution of tents and other relief items by the Pakistan Red Crescent Society (PRCS) in Charsadda and Tenghi, north of Peshawar. “Many have lost loved ones, household goods and animals. The Red Cross Red Crescent Movement is now planning a fivefold increase in its response to Pakistan’s monsoon “superflood”, and is appealing to international donors to support a recovery programme likely to extend to 2012. In the medium term, at least 6 million people will need emergency humanitarian assistance, in the form of safe water, tents and shelter materials, and medical help.