HYDERABAD: The delayed response and intervention from the government in early framework for the rehabilitation of rain-flood affected people jeopardised the lives of 4.8 million, including 2.4 million children and 1.2 million women. Talking to journalists at a press conference held at the local press club on Tuesday, members of the People Accountability Commission on Floods (PACF) said this while presenting the Civil Society Floods Situation Report (CSFR). ….
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– Pakistanis at risk over world inaction on floods: WFP
byAFP
ISLAMABAD: The United Nations warned on Monday that the international community had failed to respond to the latest flooding crisis in Pakistan, leaving three million people in urgent need of food handouts.
The nuclear-armed Muslim state has suffered two consecutive years of floods but has been at increasing risk of international isolation since US troops found and killed Osama bin Laden near the capital in May.
“Somehow the present flooding and the humanitarian impact of the present flooding has not yet picked the interest, the focus of the world,” said Ramiro Lopes da Silva, deputy executive director of the World Food Programme (WFP).
“If we have no resources, we have no response,” he told a news conference in Islamabad after visiting the flood-hit southern province of Sindh.
On September 18, the United Nations led an appeal for dollar 357 million in emergency funding to shore up rescue and relief efforts for millions of people suffering after floods swept away homes and farm land in southern Pakistan.
“The funding is not coming as swiftly and as fast at the levels it came to the response of the floods of last year,” said Lopes da Silva.
“Donors are being challenged by the level of resources required to address similar needs of humanitarian situations across the world,” he added.
Last month, the United Nations said only the Japanese government had pledged dollar 10 million in response to the appeal. ….
Read more → DAWN.COM
– ISLAMABAD – The National Nutrition Survey (NNS 2011), which was launched on Saturday, showed that Sindh had one of the highest rates of malnutrition in the country.
In Sindh 17.5 per cent of children under five years suffer from acute malnutrition, nearly seven per cent being severely malnourished. These results are way above WHO’s emergency threshold of 15 per cent, which indicates a critical nutrition situation. In addition, half of all children are stunted, a sign of long-term malnutrition.
The NNS 2011 also reports Sindh as the province with the highest proportion of food insecure people. Nearly 72 per cent of the population is food insecure and do not have access to enough food.
The situation can only be expected to get worse with the onset of current floods and the resulting loss of property, food stocks and the damage to standing crops. Last year’s post-flood nutrition survey had reported acute malnutrition rates as high as 23.1 per cent in the affected areas of Sindh. ….
The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has started distribution of food in the flood-affected areas of lower Sindh and is scaling up its efforts rapidly. “The WFP is taking practical steps to stabilise and improve the nutritional levels of the affected population. …
– Pakistan floods leave hundreds of thousands without shelter
Pakistan has appealed to the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon for international humanitarian aid for hundreds of thousands of flood victims in the south of the country. At least 130 people have been killed as mud houses in remote rural areas collapsed in the heavy rain. Among the worst affected areas in the south’s Sindh Province are Badin and Nawabshah. Rains have damaged about 80% of the region’s crops.
Shoaib Hasan reports from Sindh.
Courtesy: → BBC
Resources looted under Watan Card scheme, says Palijo
MIRPURKHAS, Nov 7: Convener of the Sindh Progressive Nationalist Alliance Ayaz Latif Palijo said on Sunday that the country’s resources were being plundered under the Watan Card scheme.
Addressing a procession taken out by the SPNA, Mr Palijo alleged that the flood-affected people in Sindh were being deprived of even the most basic items needed to survive while the affected people in Punjab and Pakhtoonkhwa were getting funds and ration and were being rehabilitated. …
Read more : DAWN
Local government says it can accommodate one million, but with some 30,000 in camps, ethnic tensions are rising
By TOM WRIGHT
KARACHI, Pakistan—Hundreds of thousands of refugees from Pakistan’s devastating floods are seeking shelter in this city of 18 million, exacerbating ethnic strife that has already escalated this year and threatens to destabilize the government of President Asif Ali Zardari.
Most of the refugees are ethnic Sindhis from areas outside Karachi, the capital of Sindh province, whose homes and livelihoods have been destroyed in the flooding that began more than three weeks ago.
Read more >> WALL STREET JOURNAL
Report by: Anand Lakhmani¸ Mumbai
The situation in flood-affected areas of Bihar is getting precarious day by day due to wide array of human, animal corpses. There is a real danger of outbreak of epidemic. Infants are not getting food; milk is being sold at Rs 400 to 500 per liter, acute shortage of drinking water, Medical Support like Doctors and Para Medical.
Continue reading Sindhi Helping hand for flood affected in Bihar, India
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