The regional director of the United Nations International Fund for Children in Emergency (UNICEF), George Laryea-Adjei, on Sunday said that the flood devastation in Pakistan was massive by any scale as the agency alone was seeking $173.5 million for providing humanitarian assistance to the flood victims in post-disaster relief efforts.
Unicef’s regional director for South Asia, in an exclusive chat with the APP, said that the fallout of the recent disaster was extensive and contained waterborne diseases that were affecting farmland, schools and everyone at large.
George said some 84 districts were to face immense challenges due to disasters, whereas out of the total $173.5 million — $34.6 million was required for nutrition; $35 million for health; $58 million for washing; $11 million for child protection; $23 million for education and $11 million for emergency preparedness. He said that he had visited many districts of Balochistan and Sindh and felt the distress of the affected families.
“The Government of Pakistan is leading the response. However, 9.6 million children need humanitarian assistance and due to floods some 23,000 schools are either destroyed or damaged,” he regretted.
Commenting on the challenges encountered in post-disaster relief and rehabilitation efforts, the Unicef director said he was noticing two massive challenges that the government should address.
“The first is the community in areas ready to return to their destroyed homes after the flood water recedes. They are going to their homes where there is no food, cattle are lost, schools are impacted heavily and farms could be inundated and water polluted.—APP
