“The most vulnerable boys and girls in Pakistan are suffering the hardest as the terrible climate crisis continues to upend the lives of millions of children.
The kids I’ve met over here have lost everything: friends, family members, the only homes they’ve ever known, their schools, and their sense of security.
Pakistan’s climate disaster is a foreboding sign of future disasters
The problem in Pakistan has intensified into a serious threat to children’s lives as the floodwaters and media attention subside. Children who are weak and hungry are fighting a lost struggle against acute respiratory infections, severe acute malnutrition, diarrhoea, malaria, dengue fever, typhoid, and painful skin disorders. Along with physical issues, children’s mental health is also at stake while the crisis drags on.
“Nearly 10 million kids require urgent, life-saving assistance. Already, hundreds of people have perished. In this country, severe acute malnutrition, a disease that can be fatal, affects more than 1 in 9 children. Parents in a panic are looking for food to give their kids even a basic supper at home.
“I met Farida in a camp in Sohbatpur, Balochistan. She and her five children had abandoned their beloved house when the floods hit. She was utterly concerned for Rasheeda, her one-year-old daughter, who was clearly thin and feeble due to acute malnutrition.
“Their story is one of countless others. Boys and girls crowded inside flimsy tents, assuming they are fortunate enough to have one, will continue to pass away from illnesses that are normally avoidable and treatable as winter approaches.
“Our assistance is essential for the boys and girls of Pakistan to survive. However, funding for the global appeal for Pakistan is still woefully inadequate. If foreign assistance is not provided to scale up measures, hundreds more children will die in the upcoming weeks.
But this tale of climate catastrophe is not only Pakistan’s story.
“Over 15 million boys and girls are in need of aid after floods brought on by climate change devastated Pakistan, Bangladesh, northern India, and Afghanistan in 2022 alone.
Extreme heatwaves with temperatures reaching up to 48 degrees have scorched the region’s populous cities. While landslides in Nepal have destroyed children’s homes and rising sea levels continue to endanger the very survival of the Maldives, glaciers have continued to melt in Pakistan and Bhutan.
“Children are suffering the most as a result of the climatic crisis in South Asia, despite having had no part in its creation. Over 616 million boys and girls who live in this region are at risk of losing their lives as a result of this climatic calamity.
Governments must need to safeguard the essential services for health, education, sanitation, and hygiene that girls and boys so desperately rely on. They must also take immediate steps to ensure that each boy and girl has the information and abilities necessary for them to live and prosper in a world with changing climates.
But mainly, world leaders need to act quickly to keep global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. The lives of children can only be saved in this way.
“I fear that the climatic crisis we have seen in Pakistan may simply be the beginning of many such catastrophes affecting child survival in the future without urgent global action.”
