5.7 million flood victims face food crisis, warns UN

ISLAMABAD:THE United Nations humanitarian agency is warning that about 5.7 million Pakistani flood survivors will face a serious food crisis in the next three months, as the death toll from the deluge rose on Monday.

Pakistan’s National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) reported that floods fuelled by abnormally heavy monsoon rain have killed 1,695 people, affected 33 million, damaged more than 2 million homes and displaced hundreds of thousands now living in tents or makeshit homes.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in its latest report said the current floods are expected to exacerbate food insecurity in Pakistan and said 5.7 million people in flood-affected areas will be facing a food crisis between September and November.

Even before the floods, according to the World Health Organisation, 16% of the population was living in moderate or severe food insecurity.

However, Pakistan’s government insists that there is no immediate worry about food supplies, as wheat stocks are enough to last through the next harvest and that the government is importing more.

The UN agency said in a tweet on Monday that the agency and other partners have scaled up their flood response and delivered aid to 1.6 million people directly affected by the deluges.

OCHA said outbreaks of waterborne and other diseases are on the rise in Sindh and southwestern Balochistan provinces, where floods have caused the most damage since mid-june.

Several countries and UN agencies have sent more than 131 flights carrying aid for survivors, but many are complaining they have either received too litle help or are still waiting for it.

The UN humanitarian agency also said in its Saturday report that rainfall in Balochistan and Sindh lightened substantially over the past week, as temperatures start to decrease ahead of winter.

Malnutrition in flood-affected communities is a further concern. Prevalence of Global Acute Malnutrition (GAM) was already high in Balochistan, KP, Punjab, and Sindh prior to the floods; 96% of children under 2 were not consuming a minimum acceptable diet, and at least 40% of children under 5 were chronically malnourished (stunted).

More recent analyses indicate preliminarily that 8.62m people in the assessed districts are estimated to be “in crisis and emergency phases” between September and November, including some 5.74m people in flood-affected districts covered by the assessment — 3.82m people in IPC phase 3 and 1.92m in IPC phase 4.