The Secretary General of the United Nations Organization (UN), António Guterres, asked this Tuesday urgent international financial aid for 5.2 million of victims of historic floods in Pakistan. For immediate relief to the population most affected by the heavy rains and floods in Pakistan, the United Nations has launched an appeal worth 160 million dollars (approximately the same amount in euros).
In a message released this day, Guterres says that the Pakistani government is applying funds to emergency aidbut that the needs continue to increase and demand “collective attention and global priority”.
The requested funds are intended to reach 5.2 million people with “food, water, sanitation, emergency education, health protection and support,” the Secretary-General said.
In his message, released while a press conference was being held in Geneva with the presence of UN officials and a member of the Government of Pakistan, Guterres also drew attention to the need to redouble efforts to combat climate change.
“As we continue to see more and more extreme weather events around the world, it is an affront that climate action is taking a backseat and that greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, putting us all, everywhere, in ever-increasing danger. ”, said the UN official.
The monsoon season is usually the wettest season in Pakistan, but this country has seen rainfall almost triple the seasonal average.
Pakistan emergency services raised the provisional death toll to more than 1,100 after the rainy season that has plagued the country for weeks and that led the Government to declare a situation of calamity in more than 50 districts.
The country’s National Disaster Management Authority counted at least 1,136 dead, according to the bulletin released on Monday, which places Sindh (402 dead), Jaiber Pakhtunjuá (258) and Baluchistan (244) as the most affected regions.
In addition, it also registered at least 1,634 injuries, although this is a provisional count since many areas are still completely flooded.
In total, it is estimated that more than 33 million people were directly or indirectly affected by the storm.
Authorities estimate that more than a million homes suffered some kind of damage, including more than 300,000 that were completely destroyed. More than 735,000 head of cattle were also lost and there are nearly 3,500 kilometers of roads damaged.
Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for the UN Secretary-General, said on Monday that Some seven million dollars have already been mobilized to respond to flooding.
“Our team, led by the UN humanitarian coordinator, Julien Harneis, is intensifying its response to the heavy rains and floods in Pakistan, where more than a thousand deaths have already been recorded, including hundreds of children,” said Dujarric, who estimated that the situation will worsen due to the “continuous rains”,
Source: Observadora
