Three months after the widespread flooding that has affected over 5 million people in southern Pakistan, shortage of funding and broad international disinterest has left millions of people at risk of illness, malnutrition and cold as the winter closes in. The Pakistan Humanitarian Forum (PHF), a consortium of 41 international aid agencies based in Pakistan, on Wednesday appealed to western governments for urgent donations to tackle this grave yet largely forgotten humanitarian crisis, according to a press statement issued here.
A UN appeal for $357 million in emergency funding made more than three months ago has been just 37 percent funded, according to the UN, with donors saying that difficult economic conditions in their own countries prevents them from giving more. But a crisis of this magnitude cannot be overlooked. The floods have largely affected Sindh and parts of Balochistan. Three million children there are at risk of severe malnutrition and disease, 160,000 women are pregnant and require immediate healthcare and 44 percent of the total affected households are in urgent need of shelter assistance. “After last year’s disastrous floods, which drew a generous outside response, this year’s crisis has been largely ignored”, said Jack Byrne, PHF Chairman. “This is a major crisis by any standards.
Local government agencies are overwhelmed by the scale of the disaster and require urgent international help to prevent death, disease and child malnutrition.” David Wright, Country Director of Save the Children said: “We are seeing incidences of malnutrition of children under five that in some cases surpass those seen in African famines such as the one in Niger last year. We are facing a situation where more children could die from the aftermath of the floods than the floods themselves.”
According to the findings of the Multi-sector Needs Assessment, 4.3 million flood affected people are food insecure, with their plight exacerbated by massive loss of food stock and damage to standing crops. “Three months into the floods, people are still desperately struggling to meet their basic needs. The approaching winter will aggravate their suffering,” said Oxfam Country Director Neva Khan. “Hundreds of thousands of farmers will miss this winter cropping season because large swathes of land are still inundated. The sluggish response to the UN appeal has left millions of vulnerable people – women, children the elderly and those with disabilities – at great risk. Their immediate future is grim unless funding is not urgently stepped up.” The flood waters are slowly receding. But families returning home in many cases, are living in worse sanitation and hygiene conditions than they were in the camps.
