Pakistan floods: 8 million still stranded months after deluge, says UN

Islamabad (Pakistan): A report prepared by the United Nations has claimed that around eight million people living in several districts of Pakistan may still be trapped by the flood waters following the massive deluge that had inundated around the third of the country earlier this year.

The report released on Tuesday, by the Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance wing of the United Nations have also said that around 240,000 people in the Southern Sindh region remain displaced.

As per the report, the eight million people are trapped in at least 12 districts namely Dadu, Kambar-Shahdadkot, Khairpur, Mirpurkhas, Jamshoro, Sanghar, Umerkot, Badin, Shaheed Benazirabad and Naushahro Feroze districts in Sindh, and Sohbatpur and Jafferabad districts in Balochistan.

Reportedly, a total of 33 million people got affected in the massive floods in Pakistan that were reported all summer due to heavy monsoon rains and melting glaciers.

As many as 1700 people died in the disaster, report said, adding that the country faced a total damage of more than $30 billion as many roads, bridges and building got washed over.

The UN report says that while millions of people even after returning to their homes, are facing a huge shortage of essential goods as basic as food, water and medicine and are at a high risk health and wellbeing.

The children especially are facing risk of diarrhea and other waterborne diseases due to contaminated water resources, said report.

However, the number have shown that the trend is slowing down and the situation is getting back to normal, however slowly.

The report cited the data of the World Health Organization (WHO) saying malaria cases have fallen by 25 percent in Balochistan, 58 percent in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and 67 percent in Sindh since early September.

The UN report also revealed that more than 600,000 children in Pakistan have not received any polio vaccine due to lack of reach to the affected areas.

This becomes even more grave since Pakistan is the only country that has not become Polio-free along with Afghanistan.

The report says a failure to address this need would worsen the already frail food security situation and drive more people into crisis and emergency levels.

The food security situation of an estimated additional 1.1 million people is deteriorating and is forecast to fall into the emergency food security phase between January and March 2023.

Evidence from available data indicates that relief response to date has fallen well short of the need, with over
5.1 million people now experiencing IPC 4 conditions in flood-affected areas.

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