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The local government decided to displace half a hundred thousand inhabitants affected by the climatic disaster that continues to accumulate deaths. The Pakistani Army office stated that they had already been transferred to safe areas and received basic necessities. Those affected, who in some cases suffered total losses, include 400 dead children and another 3.5 million who need humanitarian aid.
Conditions in Pakistan are not improving in the context of the ferocious monsoons that caused the worst floods in the last decade and overwhelmed the authorities’ possibilities of reaction.
As a consequence, the barrier of 1,200 deceased citizens was overcome, of which 400 are children, and forced the authorities to mobilize more than 50,000 people to safer locations.
“In the last 24 hours, 1,991 stranded individuals have been evacuated and 162.6 tons of relief items have been distributed to affected people,” the Pakistan Army’s communication office said.
The displaced have been sheltered in 147 camps in areas such as Sindh, Baluchistan, Punjab and Pakthunkhwa, at different ends of the territory.
Estimates of the damage caused by the flood amount to around 10,000 million dollars and include collapsed bridges, 5,000 kilometers of road destroyed and more than a million houses partially or completely swept away.
In human matters, in addition to the deceased there are another 3,600 people who ended up injured. While UNICEF warned that 3.4 million children urgently require humanitarian assistance.
Here is what the situation on the ground in #Pakistan is like.
Families have lost their homes, and are now in dire need of shelter, safe drinking water, food, hygiene, medical services and supplies. @UNICEF_Pakistan teams are already responding but much more is needed. pic.twitter.com/bBapfiBJs9
— UNICEF South Asia (@UNICEFROSA) September 2, 2022
Overwhelmed by the catastrophe, Pakistan – together with the United Nations – asked the international community for an aid of 160 million dollars to act immediately in the assistance of victims.
In some provinces of the country, the incessant rains exceeded five times the average and reached 33 million civilians. For his part, the UNICEF representative in Pakistan, Abdullah Fadil, added that the tragedy also affected 16 million children.
“Rescue and relief operations are still extremely difficult to carry out,” he described and warned that the number of casualties can increase due to the consequences, such as lack of hygiene or the precarious conditions to which the survivors will be subjected and that they can give give rise to outbreaks of diseases such as malaria or cholera.
“The situation will continue to deteriorate because winter is only eight weeks away in some parts of the country,” he said.
Food crisis in the region
The flooding in Pakistan will be one more incentive that will worsen the food insecurity that already existed in the country and in its neighbor, Afghanistan, which is largely dependent on imports from Islamabad.
This Friday, September 2, the World Food Program (WFP) -a UN satellite humanitarian organization- reported that its possibilities of bringing food to Kabul will be reduced as a result of the disaster on Pakistani soil.
“Support is needed to bring agriculture back to production,” said WFP Afghanistan Country Director Chis Kaye.
The official, who highlighted the response of the Government of Pakistan to a calamity of these magnitudes, expressed his concern to supply two territories that are weak in terms of food.
For its part, the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) records that there are 1.3 million Afghan refugees living in the most affected areas of southern Pakistan and warned that it used its reserves to assist the victims.
with EFE
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