Sindh floods: At Pakistan’s appeal, China steps up

UNICEF report says that many of the victims of this year’s inundation were also affected last year.

ISLAMABAD:

Responding to Pakistan’s appeal for international assistance China on Sunday announced that it would supply relief goods worth $4.7 million for Pakistan’s flood victims.

The appeal came as the United Nations has said that millions of people affected by the floods this year are those who are still suffering from last year’s floods, which affected 20 million people across the country.

Unicef, the children’s fund of the United Nations, has said that up to 2.5 million children have been affected by severe monsoon floods in the southern parts of the country, many of whom are still recovering from the worst floods in the country’s history just a year ago.

“Children are the most vulnerable in any emergency, and in this disaster many are experiencing the devastating effects of a flood emergency for the second time in a year. Their coping mechanisms were already weak and their vulnerabilities high,” said Dan Rohrmann UNICEF’s representative in Pakistan.

In Sindh alone, hundreds of thousands of families have been affected across 22 out of 23 districts. Nearly one million homes have been destroyed or damaged, causing population displacement.

Over 200,000 people are now staying in more than 1,400 relief camps, consisting primarily of government schools, buildings and makeshift tented settlements, according to preliminary figures released by the National Disaster Management Authority.

The government had earlier said that they had sufficient resources and the capacity to deal with the disaster and did not require international assistance. But as the situation in Sindh worsened due to torrential rains, the prime minister delivered a prime time address, appealing to the international community and donors to step forward and help Pakistan.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 12^th,  2011.