The Islāmic Republic of Pakistan in South Asia is bounded to the west by Iran, to the north by Afghanistan, to the northeast by China, to the east and southeast by India, and to the south by the Arabian Sea.September 21, 2010
UN reports more people displaced by floods
Seven weeks from one of the worst natural disasters in recent history, floods continue to force thousands more people from their homes in southern Pakistan. Survivors are still stranded in submerged villages.
An official of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Hyderabad in the southern province of Sindh said this week, “The flood waters are rising and every day we are seeing 20,000 to 30,000 people newly displaced.… The waters around Lake Manchar are overflowing in five directions to where flood victims who fled other locations are now living.”
Camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs) and makeshift settlements are overcrowded. Services are inadequate. Of the estimated 20 million people affected by floods, more than 7.3 million are in Sindh. In Sindh almost 1.1 million homes are estimated to have been destroyed. Close to 1.5 million people are sheltered in camps.
September 24, 2010
UN outlines combined strategy…
The emergency caused by the floods in Pakistan is far from over. The situation is worsening for the most vulnerable people.
Unsafe water, inadequate sanitation, food shortages and a lack of access to health services pose serious risks. The likelihood of disease outbreaks and deaths due to malnutrition are of grave concern. Many of those affected by the floods come from the areas where the disease burden, malnutrition rates and health risks were already very high. A combination of illness, food insecurity [hunger. starvation] and destruction of crops is now compounding the situation, making people more vulnerable — especially children.
September 9, 2010
Pakistan floods affect 500,000 pregnant women — CBC News
About 500,000 women affected by the floods in Pakistan are pregnant and require medical help, according to United Nations Population Fund estimates.
UN figures estimate 320 women die for every 100,000 live births — even in normal times maternal mortality is high in Pakistan. For flood victims, malnourishment, diarrhea, dysentery and malaria are rising health dangers.
United Nations mobile teams have attended 1,500 births, treated 300 women who suffered miscarriages and referred nearly 200 mothers to hospitals for delivery by caesarean section.
CBC correspondent Tom Parry reported, “Sabia Pahore delivered her seventh child in the back of a UN van. She and her family were forced from their home by flooding in the Jacobabad district in southern Pakistan. Her baby’s new home will be a thatched roof hut on a dry dusty field where she will spend her first days with dozens of other children all from the same extended family.
Midwife Farzana Sarki has delivered 20 babies in the past two weeks. She told CBC News, “We are trying our best [but] It is very difficult. … Conditions are not hygienic and sometimes it is very hard for the mothers.”
More than 1,700 people died and almost 21 million people were affected by the floods in Pakistan. These floods began about six weeks ago in Pakistan’s northwest and did not begin to recede until late last month.
CBC Dispatches program September 23, 2010
“View from a disaster” lead
“It didn't get much attention worldwide but a man died this week after setting himself on fire outside the house of Pakistan’s prime minister. Turns out, [the man] had lost his house in the floods that have affected more than 20 million others since July.”
Water recedes. Stories of damage and despair emerge.
Sources and notes
South Asia
The Islāmic Republic of Pakistan (Urdu Islām-ī Jamhūrīya-e Pākistān) sits in South Asia bounded to the west by Iran, to the north by Afghanistan, to the northeast by China, to the east and southeast by India, and to the south by the Arabian Sea. Pakistan's capital is Islāmābād
Pakistan was brought into being at the time of the Partition of British India in 1947 in order to create a separate homeland for India's Muslims in response to the demands of Islāmic nationalists, demands that were articulated by the All India Muslim League under the leadership of Mohammed Ali Jinnah. Since 1947 the territory of Jammu and Kashmir, along the western Himalayas, has been disputed between Pakistan and India, with each holding sectors. The two countries [India and Pakistan] have gone to war over the territory three times: in 1948–49, 1965, and 1971 [Britannica].
“More people being displaced by floods in Pakistan, UN reports,” September 21, 2010,
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=36021&Cr=pakistan&Cr1=
“The United Nations outlines combined strategy to ensure the survival of millions of flood affected people in Pakistan,” ISLAMABAD, 24 September 24, 2010, http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900sid/EGUA-89LT2K?OpenDocument&RSS20&RSS20=FS
“Pakistan floods affect 500,000 pregnant women,” September 9, 2010, CBC News, http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2010/09/09/pakistan-pregnant-women.html
“Correspondent speaks with shock and awe about covering the disastrous floods ravaging Pakistan — CBC correspondent Tom Parry just returned from two weeks in the disaster zone, which he describes simply, as vast. With some reflections on what he’s seen, he joined Dispatches with Rick MacInnes-Rae from his home base in London,” September 23, 2010, http://www.cbc.ca/dispatches/2010season/2010/09/23/september-23-26-2010-from-pakistan---moscow---johannesburg---india---damascus/
http://www.cbc.ca/dispatches/
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