GENEVA: Pakistan and the United Nations have called for $816 million of enhanced financial support for the flood affectees, and urged upon the international community to come forward and make generous financial contributions for people worst hit by flood in the country.
Addressing a briefing arranged by UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) on Tuesday, Pakistan’s minister for climate change Sherry Rehman said around 33 million people had been affected by the unprecedented flood, and that 70% of those were women and children.
She said countries like Pakistan, worst hit by climate change, needed an urgent global institutionalized response for building a defense against climate disaster.
Sherry Rehman said that Pakistan was faced with mega climate disaster of the century as crops and livestock were wiped out. Millions of people been displaced, disease rates were on the rise, people in submerged areas were unable to find enough dry land to bury their loved ones who had died.
“Please don’t leave us alone to face the outcome of man’s war on nature,” she said, adding that no video could capture the magnitude of the tragedy.
Speaking on this occasion, the Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths said “The Pakistan Floods are a stain on our conscience. This is not a matter of solidarity or generosity. This is a matter of justice.”
