After Floods, Pakistani Children face Winter Peril by UN News / UNICEF & agencies 10:19pm 13th Oct, 2010   Dec 2010    Pakistan’s flood-affected people in need of more assistance says UN.    The United Nations humanitarian chief visited the flood-ravaged area of Pakistan’s southern province of Sindh to review relief efforts among people still suffering from the effects of the deluge that cut a swathe across the country four months ago following torrential rainfall.    “Everything I saw and heard today confirmed that this disaster is far from over,” said Valerie Amos, the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, during her visit to Pakistan.    Millions of people in Pakistan are still living without basic necessities after their homes and sources of livelihood were washed away or damaged by the floods that swamped the provinces of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Sindh, Punjab and Balochistan along the Indus River basin following heavy monsoon rains that began in July.    “A lot has been done, but there is much more to do,” said Ms. Amos, who is also the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator. “Four months on, there are still long lines of tents along dykes and dams. Even the strongest are growing weary. It is critical that we continue to assist the people of Pakistan during this devastating emergency.”    Out of an estimated 18 million people affected by the floods, close to 7.2 million are in Sindh.    Ongoing relief efforts have made it possible for more than two million people in Sindh to have access to safe water, and more than 4.3 million others have received food assistance, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).    High levels of malnutrition and a risk of an outbreak of disease, however, remain a concern, with children and pregnant women being the most vulnerable. Large areas of Sindh remain under water, with nearly half a million homes destroyed and one million people displaced.    “People are worried about the future – for many of them even when the waters recede, they will have nothing to go back to,” said Ms. Amos.    Last month, the UN and its partners delivered food to six million people. In total, more than 4.3 million people have access to safe drinking water on a daily basis, emergency shelter materials have been distributed to 4.7 million people, and more than seven million people have benefited from health care.    Oct. 2010    As winter approaches on Pakistan"s flooded southern plains, thousands of malnourished children are living in dirty, spartan tents without prospect of a home, officials and UN workers say.    Doctors treating thin and bedraggled youngsters say a lack of nutritious food and clean water are threatening lives among the 250,000 children still in relief camps nearly three months after the catastrophic floods began.    With much of southern Sindh province still under water and many temporary camps in schools closing to allow classes to resume, the future for children of the flood is worrying, they say.    "These children are facing serious threats to their lives. Malnutrition is posing a huge threat and could cause a greater disaster," said Mohammad Ashraf, a nutritionist from Hyderabad volunteering in the relief camps.    The UN children"s agency, UNICEF, said aid agencies and state authorities have been targeting more than 75,500 severely malnourished children who are 10 times more likely to die because of lack of decent food.    Another 180,000 moderately malnourished children are in need, they said, aggravating an already dire situation for Pakistan"s impoverished families.    "The floods have aggravated malnutrition among children who were already suffering and have spectacularly exposed the situation before the world," said Kaleem Shaikh, head of charity, the Peoples Development Foundation.    In the last mass nutrition survey conducted in 2002, Pakistan health authorities said that about 40 percent of children under the age of five were underweight and stunted.    UN figures show that nearly three million children under the age of five were affected by the floods, which began at the end of July, and a rough UNICEF estimate shows 250,000 are still critically affected by a lack of food.    As the season cools and winter rains arrive, UN officials at the World Food Programme said that stockpiling food is an urgent issue.    "Rapid assessments of nutritional status and clinical observations strongly suggest that rates of acute malnutrition are rising," said WFP spokeswoman Jackie Dent.    But she said donations to UN funding appeals had been desperately slow and threatened the emergency operations.    "Sadly, we are getting low on funds and by November we have a pipeline break for several commodities," said Dent, adding that more than 80 million dollars were needed for provisions in November and December alone.    Doctors say a combination of malnutrition and dirty drinking water have caused skin problems, diarrhoea, malaria and respiratory problems for children, particularly those under the age of five.    At least seven million people are still without shelter nearly three months after catastrophic floods devastated huge parts of the country, the United Nations has said.    Torrential monsoon rains began falling in north-western Pakistan in July, causing floods that moved steadily south, wiping out villages and farmland and affecting an area roughly the size of England.    "At least seven million people are currently without shelter in the flood-affected areas," UN spokeswoman Stacey Winston told a news conference in Islamabad. The floods destroyed and damaged over 1.9 million homes.    The United Nations has issued a record $2 billion appeal for funds to cope with the disaster, which UN agencies say affected 21 million people. Only around 35 per cent of the appeal has already been funded.    Ms Winston estimated that 14 million people were in need of immediate humanitarian assistance, saying that the United Nations distributed food rations among 2.5 million people this month in 39 flood-affected districts. Visit the related web page
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