UN body says 4.5 mln affected by Pakistan floods

GENEVA: Devastating floods in Pakistan have affected an estimated 4.5 million people, UN officials said on Friday, as relief workers warned that the amount of aid needed was “absolutely daunting”. “The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimates globally that 4.5 million people have been affected by the flooding,” said UN spokesperson Elena Ponomareva, marking an increase of some 300 000 in a day. Citing estimates from Pakistani authorities, UN relief agencies said 252 000 homes have been destroyed as relentless monsoon rains continue and flood water rolls southwards through some of the poorest parts of the country. “Basically, as we”re hearing, the scale of the needs is absolutely daunting,” said Melissa Fleming, a spokesperson for the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. The World Food Programme said it was preparing to provide food aid to some 2.5 million flood victims for three months, after delivering rations to 237 000 people in the worst hit areas. “It’’s a rolling emergency, this is something that’’s not over, the rains are continuing” said Emilia Casella, a spokesperson for the UN food agency. “That means the people who are already affected are being further affected, and the people who weren”t affected yet are now at risk of being hit by damage to their homes, their crops and their businesses,” she added. One million people hit by previous emergencies in the northwest, including the huge 2005 earthquake and conflicts, were already relying on WFP food rations before the worst floods in living memory struck. The WFP said it was likely to ask donors for about $63m to finance emergency aid in Pakistan, while the UN Children’’s Fund (Unicef) appealed for $47.3m to fund its relief operation in Pakistan. About 1.8 million children are among those hit by the flooding, according to the agency, and are especially vulnerable to the risk of disease. “They need water, medicine, food and shelter urgently,” Martin Mogwanja, Unicef’’s spokesperson in Pakistan said in a statement. UN agencies were unable to give an estimate of the total number of people who were displaced or homeless. Baloch Babar, a Pakistani spokesperson for the UNHCR in Geneva, told AFP that provincial authorities in the northwest had indicated that 1.5 million people were displaced in that area alone. He said that the extent of the monsoon rains was exceptional, with the floods putting “the poorest of all” at risk, impoverished rural farm workers in South Punjab and Sindh province who often live along river banks. Pakistan on Friday evacuated half a million people from at-risk areas in the agricultural south. Longer term damage to Pakistan’’s agriculture is also feared, after crops in fertile farmland in the northwestern Swat Valley were devastated and the floods now threaten the country’’s bread basket in the plain.

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UN body says 4.5 mln affected by Pakistan floods