In a bid to assist Pakistan with the devastating floods that has killed more than 1,100 people, the UN has issued an appeal for $160 million to help the country during this time.
IN A BID to assist Pakistan with the devastating floods that have killed more than 1,100 people, the UN has issued an appeal for $160 million (about R2.7 billion) to help the country during this time.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Pakistan was awash in suffering due to the relentless impact of epochal levels of rain and flooding.
“The Pakistani people are facing a monsoon on steroids,” said Guterres.
“Millions are homeless, schools and health facilities have been destroyed, livelihoods are shattered, critical infrastructure wiped out, and people’s hopes and dreams have washed away.”
Guterres added that the colossal crisis required urgent, collective action in order to help the government and people of Pakistan in their hour of need.
According to Pakistan’s National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), more than two million acres (about 800,000 hectares) of cultivated crops have been wiped out, around 3,457km of roads destroyed, and 157 bridges washed away.
The Pakistan coalition government has meanwhile approved the establishment of the National Flood Response and Co-ordination Centre to provide further institutional response to the flood crisis.
“The centre will serve as a bridge between disaster management authorities, donors and government institutions,” PM Shehbaz announced on his Twitter handle.
Shehbaz added that the centre would collect and analyse the latest information and pass it on to the relevant government agencies.
He also thanked Chinese president Xi Jinping as well as Turkey president Recep Tayyip Erdogan for their financial assistance during this time.
