Pakistan: Food packages for children and women

 

Pakistan has experienced the worst flood disaster in its history. Even weeks after the torrential floods, almost a third of the country is under water. More than 1,400 people have lost their lives, entire areas are devastated. 33 million people, including eleven million children, are affected. Many families have lost their home and their livelihood, important infrastructure was destroyed. More than 800,000 farm animals have died.

 

Immediately after the disaster, Terre des Hommes and his partner organizations initiated the first aid measures. In the particularly affected province of Singh, food packages have been distributed to more than 1,500 households affected by the flood in recent weeks. Single women with children and families who have lost their houses and are without accommodation are primarily cared for. The auxiliary measures are implemented on site by the local partner organization Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum.

"Flood is an unprecedented climate catastrophe"

The floods have hit a country that is particularly affected by the consequences of climate change and already has problems feeding its rapidly growing population. Year after year, less snow falls in the Himalayas, which flows into the valleys downstream in spring and on which the farmers rely on the irrigation of their fields in spring. The monsoon, usually a blessing for the dry country, hardly comes regularly, and if so, then with extreme downpours. In spring, an extreme heat wave hit the country, it was the previous climax of a series of successive drought years. Then the monsoon broke with previously previously measured rains, which UN Secretary General António Guterres described as "unprecedented climate catastrophe". The crop losses through the drought of the first half of the year were immense. The flood disaster destroyed a lot of what was left.

Aid packages for the worst affected families

"Hundreds of hectares of land are flooded and the water does not go back quickly enough," said Salam Dharejo, who coordinates the Terre des Hommes projects in Pakistan. And the situation worsens: diseases due to contaminated water increase, many children are already malnourished. Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum works with volunteers who organize the distribution of the aid packages with rice, flour, food oil and baby food in the communities. In addition, the families receive mosquito nets to reduce the risk of malaria infection. "At the moment," says Salam Dharejo, "people don't have much more than waiting for the water to go back."

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