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Displaced Pakistani children, sleep under a mosquito net as they take refuge with heir family on a roadside in Mirpur Khas in Pakistan's Sindh province, after fleeing their flood-hit homes, Wednesday, Sept. 28, 2011. – AP Photo
GENEVA: Pakistan’s monsoon floods have devastated millions of lives, but one month on, the international response remains sluggish, raising fears of a worsening humanitarian situation.
“The international community is not coming forward to provide funds,” said Joe Cropp of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC.) “Interest just isn’t there,” he told IRIN, the UN information unit.
Oxfam, for its part, says that while humanitarian aid will be needed for months to come, relief activities so far “have barely scratched the surface”.
UN agencies have repeatedly called for funds over recent weeks, warning that the situation could deteriorate rapidly if new aid is not forthcoming.
Only 18 percent of the US$357 million Pakistan Flood Response Plan appeal has been funded to date. “It is really too little and it is cause for concern,” said Elisabeth Byrs, spokeswoman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA.)
“Winter is about to set in, and with the cold the situation will become unbearable, notably in Sindh [Province] where 850,000 people live in temporary shelters,” Byrs told journalists in Geneva.
An estimated 5.8 million people have been struggling to survive in Sindh and Balochistan provinces since torrential monsoon rains pounded southern Pakistan in September, triggering serious flooding. Over 1.5 million houses were damaged, three million acres of crops were destroyed and one third of cattle were lost, while three million people are still in need of food assistance, according to UN figures.
Many of those affected were still recovering from the disastrous 2010 floods, which affected 18 million people in Pakistan.
“What we have is a very serious situation in southern Pakistan, with hundreds of thousands of families affected, and vulnerable children who’ve already lived though one devastating flood, facing the repercussions of another one,” said Marixie Mercado, spokeswoman for the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF.) “The reality is that unless this crisis gets more attention – and by that we mean funding – things will only get worse.”
Donors stay away
As shocking images from starving children in Somalia have gripped world attention, the suffering in Pakistan is getting comparatively little media coverage. This is one of the reasons funding remains so low, says Cropp, who is based in Islamabad.
The IFRC official believes donor reluctance is also a result of the bad press Pakistan has been getting, and its reputation as a haven for armed groups. “If you look into the media, there are negative perceptions of the country. People are talking about the Pakistani government’s relation with America; they’re talking about militias, things like that. That negative perception may make donors reluctant to step forward.”
Yet, he insisted the issue should not be one of politics. “The people of Sindh are not militias, they’re ordinary people, they’re farmers, they’re teachers, and they need help.”
The Geneva-base ACT Alliance also urged donors to step forward, bemoaning what it called the “sluggish” international response.
“The worst-hit communities are mostly likely already impoverished, marginalised and need help to stop them falling further below the poverty line and deeper into debt and uncertainty,” the alliance of churches and church-related organisations said.
What's the response of Pakistani government to this situation?
Do they realize that world perception to them should change? Even though west dumps loads of aid money, if asked Pakistan government and people will again say US and West are conspiring against their country.
Last year US army helped so many flood victims and rescued, in return what they got, being ambushed and killed by government partonised militants.
Why Pakistan always eye on US, UN and other western countries when it comes to aid?
Why cannot Pakistan be self sufficient?
How long US and UN will keep giving aid to Pakistan?
Where billions and billions of dollars that US/ UN and other countries gave to Pakistan went??
They went towards making Pakistani defence impregnable. They wisely used that money to build nukes and missiles.
This response has everything to do with bad press in my opinion. I cannot think of any other occasion where such an enormous natural disaster has garnered SO little coverage let along response in terms of assistance. Government failures aside (and of course they must be held accountable), the catastrophe in Pakistan is so enormous that it would have still gotten to the stage of needing international assistance whether or not the govt. was competent. The biggest contributors to climate change which is not only affecting Pakistan but which is affecting Pakistan severely are despite all of the evidence, refusing to make any real progress on reducing climate change. As I see it, 'suffering Pakistan' doesn't fit too well with the international media's narrative of Pakistan and so doesn't get any coverage. But people are dying as a direct result of a lack of funds in Sindh, Balochistan and Punjab as a result of this narrative, and this is just not acceptable. Whilst I can understand the world's public not donating, whilst I can even understand the aid agencies not making appeals that won't generate any funds, I certainly do not expect the governments and politicians of the world, and UN member countries to read so inconceivably narrowly and allow bad press to stop even them helping these victims, who are victims in every sense of the word. I would expect educated people to differentiate between extremists and farmers.
Without diminishing in any way the tragedy unfolding with the people in Sindh, it is fair to say that the world is gripped with many a crisis at the moment. It is the people of Pakistan who need to come to the aid of their fellow countrymen before expecting the rest of the world to come to their aid. How can one justify a call for aid when the people of Pakistan do not pay their fair share of taxes and the taxes actually collected is frittered away in developing a stockpile of nukes?
Aid will not come until your government explains what happened during the previous natural disasters when millions were donated.Our nation sent it's help team during the earthquake with food,doctors and tents.Now there is not even a word to help.We have gone to Somalia.No one has any idea where the donated money went.Take the case of Iran that gave 100 million.Until and unless there is a clear and transparent act by your government I doubt any one will help you.