Media watch: Suffering through the flood crisis

Media focus turns to uncoordinated flood relief, poor security for affectees and the role of Islamist organisations.

Media watch is a daily round-up of key articles featured on news websites, hand-picked by The Express Tribune web staff.

Homeless and hungry attack aid convoys

Malik Tehseen Raza reporting for Dawn narrates a tale of starving flood affectees in Muzaffargarh attacking relief good convoys in order to procure supplies for themselves and their families.

Five people were detained by Sadar police for ‘stealing’ goods from relief vehicles. One of them said he had been forced to do so because he had nothing to eat. He said the detained people belonged to well-off families but the floods had rendered them homeless and now they were being dubbed thieves. Police freed them after some time.

Looters exploit flood misery

Daily Times cites witness reports of ongoing looting in Karampur following the floods. The report highlights the activities of armed bandits moving within the area to steal valuables, cattle and food supplies.

“There was nobody to rescue us from the floods and now there’s nobody to save us from bandits. We were waiting for help when armed men came and seized our belongings at gunpoint,” said Abdul Karim, 20.

Build the dam now

S. Tariq writing for The Nation comments on the need for the government to focus on building dams, which may have served to protect towns and villages in such a calamity.

It is common knowledge that aside from their power generation and irrigation uses, dams are an effective aid to controlling and managing flood waters. I was told by some experts, that the city of Nowshera and the surrounding area was inundated due the swollen waters of River Kabul and a surge from the River Indus. If this be true then perhaps a dam such as Kalabagh may have prevented or minimised the catastrophe.

Flood disaster: proposal to levy one-time import duty under study

Business Recorder reports that “the federal government is examining a proposal to levy one-time flood disaster import duty on non-essential and luxury items to generate additional revenue for the flood victims.”

Why is the world unmoved by the plight of Pakistan?

Angry flood survivors are turning to a banned Islamist charity, Andrew Buncombe reports for The Independent from central Punjab.

The boat which The Independent accompanied flew the black and white banner of Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the supposedly banned Islamic charity, accused by the UN Security Council of being a front for militants who allegedly planned and carried out the 2008 terror attacks on Mumbai.

In this natural disaster, as in several before, the Lahore-based group has played a central role delivering aid, rescuing people and providing emergency medical help.

What explains the tight-fisted response to Pakistan’s floods?

The steady drip of negative 'terror'-obsessed media coverage has done Pakistanis a great disservice says Catriona Luke writing for The Guardian.