Two million people are now homeless, electricity grids have been closed down to prevent electrocution, water supplies are contaminated, livestock drowned, 1.7m acres of crops destroyed, bridges, roads, schools, whole villages swept away. Experts have warned of the high risk of a cholera epidemic and further monsoon downpours are forecast. Unlike in the aftermath of the 2005 earthquake, when people jumped into their cars crammed with whatever supplies they had in their kitchens and drove to the affected areas, this time there is no voluntary mobilisation...
Every province in Pakistan has been affected and 14m people — about one in 10 of the population — need help. That is more than the total affected by the Asian tsunami, the 2005 Pakistan earthquake and the Haiti quake combined...
Pakistanis themselves have failed to donate to the emergency fund set up by their own government. Many are choosing to give hand-outs directly instead. There’s widespread anger in the country against the government, exacerbated by the president’s ill-timed and costly jaunt to London to see our own prime minister earlier this month. As Imran says: “No one trusts the government to administer the funds properly. No one knows where to give or where to even begin to help. It’s so huge.”
There are good reasons to be cynical. Pakistan has a president formerly known as Mr 10% (upgraded since his presidency to Mr 110%), who is alleged to have acquired up to $1.5 billion (£960m) through corruption. Seventy per cent of the money given by the World Bank to be spent on flood prevention has been embezzled or spent badly, according to Syed Adil Gilani at Transparency International Pakistan, the non-governmental organisation...
Jihadi-linked charitable organisations have been very effective at providing aid in times of crisis. The 2m children in Pakistan’s madrasahs are provided with free shelter, food and limited education where there is no government-funded alternative. In Mianwali, Imran’s constituency, 70% of all government schools are closed — “20% are ghost schools which exist only on paper, the other 50% have no teachers. It’s not surprising that poor people send their children to madrasahs”. There is a danger that those same charities will step into the void and gain credibility in the face of the government’s ineptitude.
The floods are likely to lead to massive poverty and unrest in an already volatile nuclear-armed country. There are two reasons why this should concern us here. In the geopolitical sense an impoverished, unstable, ungovernable Pakistan, with no control over militant extremists, would be a disaster that would make the floods look like rising damp. More importantly, it should concern us as human beings: a dying father tied his newborn child to a tree trusting that someone would help. That someone should be all of us.
To help Unicef’s Pakistan floods appeal go to unicef.org.uk/jkp
The rest of her report is in The Sunday Times. Photo credit Abbie Trayler-Smith
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