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Floods Prompt Mass Evacuations In Pakistan's South
August 27, 2010
Pakistan is evacuating 300,000 people from another southern city in Sindh Province as a flood surge has breached embankments on the Indus River, inundating homes and swamping vast areas of farmland.
The evacuations come after the Taliban issued a veiled threat against foreigners helping Pakistan respond to the floods, potentially complicating relief efforts.
The evacuation of Thatta and its surroundings was ordered overnight after waters of the Indus River caused a 6-meter breach in the city's protective embankment.
City administrator Manzoor Sheikh said about 70 percent of Thatta's population had been moved to safer places shortly before midday, while army engineers were trying to plug the breach.
Standing in front of his flooded house, Shafi Mohammad, a resident of Kot Aalimo in the Thatta area, said help was not arriving.
"All of us have come out ourselves, but are still waiting for the facilities to be provided by the government. We have asked the military for the temporary camps but still we are not provided with any," he said.
"Different people come to help but they give it to their relatives or people they know."
'From Bad To Worse'
Most people in the towns of Sujawal, Daro, and Mirpur Batoro -- with a combined estimated population of 400,000 -- were evacuated on August 26. The move came after the swollen Indus River burst through flood walls about 100 kilometers east of the port city of Karachi.
A spokesman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Islamabad estimated that 1 million people were displaced in the last 48 hours in Sindh alone. Maurizio Giuliano said the situation there was "getting from bad to worse."
The flood surge, which followed weeks of monsoon rains, has affected more than 17 million people, leaving 1,600 dead and about 8 million people in need of urgent humanitarian assistance. Officials warn that millions are at risk from disease and food shortages. Many of the affected areas are hard to reach because of the water.
Taliban Threats
Meanwhile, the Associated Press has quoted Pakistani Taliban spokesman Azam Tariq as saying that the presence of foreign aid workers was "unacceptable," adding, "When we say something is unacceptable to us, one can draw one's own conclusion."
There have been no attacks since the humanitarian crisis unfolded, but the United Nations and the United States said they were taking the threat of attacks seriously.
UN humanitarian chief John Holmes told a news conference at UN headquarters in New York that the organization would not be deterred by threats of violence.
"We will obviously take these threats seriously, as we did before, and take appropriate precautions," Holmes said. "but as I say we will not be deterred from doing what we believe we need to do, which is to help the people of Pakistan."
Holmes said UN security experts would be working with other international organizations "to assess what the risks are and to minimize them."
In Washington, State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said the U.S. government had information of a "real threat" that extremist groups could carry out attacks against foreign aid workers or government institutions in Pakistan.
"Without getting into intelligence matters, we are in possession of threat information," Crowley said. "We are dealing, we are talking to, and working with the government of Pakistan to do everything we can to make sure that our disaster response and Pakistan's disaster response can continue in light of this threat."
Taliban militants have attacked aid workers in Pakistan in the past. A suicide attack against the office of the UN's World Food Program in Islamabad last October killed five staffers.
compiled from agency reports
Copyright (c) 2010. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.
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