PAKISTAN: Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi says upwards of $800 million has been donated or pledged for Pakistani flood victims

Record ID: 345456

  • Title: PAKISTAN: Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi says upwards of $800 million has been donated or pledged for Pakistani flood victims
  • Date: 23rd August 2010
  • Summary: RELIEF WORKERS OFF LOADING BAGS OF RELIEF MATERIAL VARIOUS OF STACKED RELIEF GOODS
  • Embargoed: 7th September 2010 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Pakistan
  • Country: Pakistan
  • Topics: International Relations,Disasters / Accidents / Natural catastrophes
  • Reuters ID: LVA32NHOGP8MB4OMC0QFF709MWG2
  • Story Text: Upwards of $800 million has been donated or pledged for flood victims in Pakistan according to foreign minister.
    More than $800 million has been donated or pledged to help Pakistan's flood victims, the foreign minister said in Sunday (August 22), as hundreds of thousands of people in the south feared more destruction.
    Rising waters in Sindh province threatened to wreak havoc in U.S. ally Pakistan in a catastrophe that has made the government more unpopular and may help Islamist militants gain supporters.
    Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi expressed gratitude for the $815.58 million in international assistance to ease the suffering from one of the worst disasters in Pakistan's history.
    "Member states by themselves announced additional assistance. In those two sessions 254.4 million dollars were committed. Our appeal was 460 and thank God we have achieved that target. The funds committed so far is 490 or so million dollars, and we have the pledges of around some 325 million dollars. The total commitments for Pakistan are 815.58 million dollars."," he told a news conference in Islamabad.
    The U.N. had appealed for $459 million in initial response funds.
    The worst floods in decades have destroyed villages, bridges and roads made more than 4 million homeless and raised concerns that militants will exploit the misery and chaos.
    Saleh Farooqui, director general of the disaster management authority in Sindh, said floods have hit at least four districts, including urban areas, forcing about 200,000 people to flee for higher ground in the last 24 hours.
    Officials expect the floodwaters will recede nationwide in the next few days as the last river torrents empty into the Arabian Sea, state news agency APP reported.
    But when that happens, millions of Pakistanis will almost certainly want the government, which was already constrained by a fragile economy before the flood, to quickly deliver homes and compensation for the loss of livestock and crops.
    Meanwhile, several relief camps have sprung up in Pakistan's commercial capital Karachi in about a week's time.
    Thousands of flood victims in Shikarpur, Jacobabad, Kashmore, Sukkur and other towns of Sindh have moved to these camps.
    There are no floods in Karachi which is capital of Sindh province.
    Officials said they have registered bout 7000 flood survivors at one of the several such camps set up by the government.
    Half a million people are living in about 5,000 schools in flood-hit areas of Pakistan where poor hygiene and sanitation, along with cramped quarters and the stifling heat, provide fertile ground for potentially fatal diseases such as cholera.
    The government has been accused of moving too slowly and Islamist charities, some with suspected links to militant groups, have moved rapidly to provide relief to Pakistanis, already frustrated with their leaders' track record on security, poverty and chronic power shortages.
    The flood has been spreading through the rice-growing belt in the north of Sindh district by district, breaking through or flowing over embankments.
    Pakistan said last week the floods meant the country would miss this year's 4.5 percent gross domestic product growth target, while its fiscal deficit is now projected to widen to more than 8 percent of GDP. Floods caused widespread crop damage.
    If plans to spend on infrastructure, schools, factories and security forces in former Taliban insurgent strongholds in the northwest are scrapped because of the costs of the flood, that could set back government efforts to win public support.
    The International Monetary Fund said it would review Pakistan's budget and economic prospects in light of the disaster in talks with government officials on Monday.
    The meetings in Washington will focus on a $10 billion IMF programme agreed in 2008, and the budget and macroeconomic prospects will be reviewed because of the magnitude of the flood disaster, officials said.
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