UN prepares for harsh weather in flood affected areas

Arrangements to stock medicines, food and winter kits have been made.

ISLAMABAD: As temperatures drop below freezing in parts of Pakistan, United Nations (UN) agencies stock essential life saving items to cater to the emerging needs of the flood victims across Pakistan.

According to the UN each cluster is under funded making it harder for the agency to secure the future of the victims.

UN agencies have made arrangements to stock medicines, food supplies, and winter kits to facilitate the flood victims. The World Food Program (WFP) is distributing food to an average of 6-7 million people across the flood-stricken areas every month. The agency now plans to reposition helicopters from Sindh to winter-zones such as Gilgit-Baltistan, Azad Jammu Kashmir (AJK) and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) and supply them with two months rations instead of one.

Gul Affridi from World Health Organization said that the organisation has stocked medicines for pneumonia in ARI centres. Affridi further said that there were eight fresh cases of polio which have been detected bringing the total to 134 cases which is alarming; the organisation is working very closely to cater to the issue.

According to Stacey Winston from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), 4 million people are in need of emergency shelter. “There are a number of places in the south where displacement is still ongoing and it is hard to assess the number of people displaced” Winston added. She further said that there are a number of people in the transitional period, where they have moved out of the camps but are without homes.

“This is one of the largest natural disaster appeals put out by the UN” said Winston. “They might get immediate relief for as long as six months but we need funds for longer periods of time” she added.

Duniya Aslam Khan from the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) said that the most vulnerable IDPs will not leave camps for as long as 2-3 months. The agency’s winter programme has begun in K-P and Balochistan.

Khan added that in Balochistan, more than 56,700 people will receive UNHCR’s winter aid, mainly in  the worst affected areas of Naseerabad, Jaffarabad, Jhal Magsi and Sibi.  UNHCR has also started building transitional and semi-permanent shelters. Some 40,000 shelters will be built for flood victims across Pakistan before the end of this year.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 16^th, 2010.