Pakistan: UNHCR to launch airlift to meet Balochistan's urgent needs

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Pakistan: UNHCR to launch airlift to meet Balochistan's urgent needs

By Andrew Purvis

14 August 2010

ISLAMABAD, 14 August 2010 (UNHCR) - The UN Refugee Agency will urgently airlift relief items to flood stricken Balochistan Province to boost relief supplies available to meet the needs of vulnerable people forced to flee the floods.

Estimates put the number of people in Balochistan in need of shelter assistance at 287,000, but damage assessment across eastern areas of the province is ongoing and that number is expected to rise.

Tens of thousands of people have fled flooding in Naseerabad and Jaffarabad, two of the hardest-hit districts in Balochistan, with more than 1,000 people having arrived in the provincial capital Quetta. More than 10,000 desperate people fleeing rising waters in Sindh Province have so far sought help in Balochistan's Sibi District.

The UN Refugee Agency initially plans to airlift plastic sheeting, mosquito nets and soap to Balochistan to assist flood-affected Pakistanis and Afghan refugees and is working to arrange suitable cargo flights. More than 4,700 tents and 5,000 kitchen sets are on their way by road from manufacturers in Karachi and should reach Quetta as early as tomorrow. UNHCR has so far dispatched shelter material for more than 46,000 people to communities across Balochistan.

The joint UN team that reached Naseerabad and Jaffarabad saw displaced families living under an open sky and drinking muddy water used by animals and for washing. Plastic sheeting and tents are urgently needed to shelter and protect vulnerable women and children. Nearly all clinics, schools and other facilities have been submerged as the water swept across the worst-affected districts. Afghan refugee camps in Balochistan have also been badly damaged.

"Humanitarian needs keep rising across Pakistan as assessment teams reach more remote areas," said Mr Mengesha Kebede, UNHCR's representative in Pakistan. "We're getting aid to many vulnerable and exposed Pakistani and refugee families in flood stricken communities, but we urgently need more support to meet the vast needs."

The agency last week launched an initial $41 million funding appeal to support shelter and protection needs of some 560,000 refugees and Pakistani communities devastated by the monsoon flooding. While donors have indicated they will support UNHCR's request, the agency expects its shelter and protection programme to expand due to the needs of both refugees and Pakistani host communities.

Working mainly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan provinces, the UN refugee agency has already dispatched enough shelter material and family kits for some 330,000 people.

"We require greater support from both governments and private individuals to meet the needs on the ground and replenish our flood-devastated stockpiles," Kebede declared.

In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the province most seriously hit by the flooding, UNHCR will deliver tents, plastic sheeting and various family items to people in Babara village in Charsadda District following an assessment earlier this week that found more than 50 homes washed away and 200 were badly damaged.

"There's still a lot of mud everywhere," said UNHCR's Ariane Rummery. "Families have four feet of water in each room and are trying to scoop it out but lack tools as everything was buried or washed away."

"We visited one family in Babara that sheltered 70 neighbours on the roof and in the upper two rooms of their home while the flooding was at is peak," she said.

A boy makes his way through thick mud and debris carrying belongings he managed to salvage from his family's home, Pir Pai.

A young goat herder collects driftwood on the muddy shoreline of the Swat River near Chakdara.

An Afghan family transports their recovered belongings back to their temporary shelter via donkey cart, Pir Pai.

Afghan refugees salvage their belongings from the mud.

A man surrounded by salvaged goods rests in an impromptu camp on a median strip of the Grand Trunk Road, near Nowshera.

A woman washes her young daughter in muddy water as traffic rolls by.

A makeshift camp along the trunk road. People without any means to rent accommodation have been forced onto this patch of high ground.

Ten year-old Naida prays in the water-damaged sitting room of her family's home in Nishath Mill Village. Until two days ago, the house was submerged in one meter of flood water and Naida and her six brothers and sisters were forced to sleep on the roof .

A fight breaks out over a bag of cooked rice. With more than three million people affected by flooding, food supplies are running dangerously short.

A young Afghan refugee, covered in mud and dirt, stands in her family's water-damaged home in the village of Nishath Mill. Surrounded by dark brown water, her family has no clean water to drink or food to eat. Their remote village has yet to receive any assistance.

An aerial view of the flooded village of Tali in the Sibi district, in Balochistan, western Pakistan.

Residents walk on a flood-ravaged road outside Tali village in Balochistan.

A man in Balochistan digs through the rubble in search of personal belongings to salvage.

A young boy feels his way through flood waters using a walking stick.

The ruins of homes destroyed in the worst flooding Pakistan has seen in decades, Tali village, Balochistan.

At the UNHCR warehouse in Quetta, trucks are loaded with tents, jerry cans, buckets, kitchen sets and plastic sheets for distribution to survivors of the floods.