UN to launch appeal for Pakistan flood victims shortly

ISLAMABAD: Incharge of United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Pakistan, Fawad Hussein said that the UN will launch an appeal for three to four hundred million dollars aid till Sunday to overcome the situation in Pakistan.

Talking to BBC, he said that the UN has mobilized its stocks in the country and started to provide immediate relief to the flood affected people.

He said the draft document regarding appeal for aid has been evaluated. The draft will be sent to the Pakistan government.

Fawad said that the government has declared 21 districts as flood affected and the UN, conversely, gives priority to the 16 districts and says that the remaining districts do not receive maximum brunt of the flood.

He said the affected population touches the number of 5.4 million and the magnitude of the disaster is very huge which spans on the vast swath of the province.

The last year floods had only hit the right bank of the Indus River while the recent floods hit both left and right banks. It is the main reason that the magnitude of the recent floods is greater than the previous one. The flood affected 1.93 million families, he added.

To a question, he said that acute diarrhea has hit Sindh, which may lead a patient to the cholera and these diseases spread due to polluted flood water.

Fawad Hussein said 2.4 million females and 700, 000 children have been affected by the flood. The major problem is that the lowest movement of the population in the flood hit areas towards camps which creates problems for us to figure out the actual numbers, he added.

Copyright APP (Associated Press of Pakistan), 2011