An international organisation has increased its initial $160 million request to $816 million in order to help with flood relief.
In Pakistan, where more than five million people are experiencing a severe food crisis as a result of recent disastrous floods, the UN has raised its humanitarian request.
Following the start of Pakistan’s record-breaking rains in June, about 1,700 individuals, including more than 600 children, lost their lives, and 33 million people were also negatively impacted.
The UN is now requesting $816 million for flood relief operations, up from its first demand for $160 million in August, when severe rains and floods ravaged most of Pakistan, according to Julien Harneis, the nation’s UN humanitarian coordinator.
“A second wave of death and destruction is now upon us. If we don’t move quickly to assist the government in expanding the provision of health, nutrition, water, and sanitation services across the impacted areas, there will be a horrible spike in child morbidity, Harneis warned reporters during a media conference in Geneva.
The OCHA study also mentioned the “increasing worry” over “water-borne and vector-borne illnesses,” notably in the severely affected regions of Sindh and Balochistan.
It was also mentioned that almost 1.6 million women of reproductive age, including about 130,000 expectant women, require urgent medical attention.
Addressing the UN General Assembly late last month, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif claimed that despite having minimal involvement in its creation, his nation has been suffering the effects of the climate disaster.
Pakistan has never witnessed a starker and more tragic illustration of the effects of global warming. Without considering our minuscule carbon impact, nature has let loose her wrath on Pakistan. Our actions had nothing to do with it, he insisted.
