UNPO Presidency Calls on Pakistan’s Allies to Speed Aid to Sindh Province and Ensure Reconstruction Begins
As flood water recede and foreign ministers meet in Brussels to discuss the reconstruction package needed in Pakistan, the UNPO Presidency makes clear the pressing need for Islamabad to allow SIndhis to remain in urban relief camps and that reconstruction must be accompanied by reform and real oversight.
Below is a statement issued by the UNPO Presidency:
UNPO Presidency Calls on Pakistan’s Allies to Speed Aid to
Sindh Province and Ensure Reconstruction Begins
14 October 2010
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The Hague, 14 October 2010 – The unprecedented floods that have struck Pakistan continue to leave villages and cropland inundated in the Sindh Province of the country with communities and infrastructure utterly destroyed.
UNPO Members joined together on 23 August 2010 to call for the direct supply of aid to those that needed it in Sindh, Balochistan and Gilgit-Baltistan and for the international community to support a dialogue to address the major governance issues that worsened the situation.
Deliberate river breaches in Sindh Province have displaced over five million people and inundated 4,000 towns and villages. Property belonging to poor Sindhis worth billions of dollars has been lost to save military installations and interests with the result that the risk of widespread famine now threatens.
But Islamabad continues to fail in the effective release of relief funds and systematically underestimates losses in Sindh Province, thereby forcing inadequate aid to be distributed between millions of people.
The disregard for human life seen during the strategic breaching of canals and the feeble humanitarian response by Islamabad is increasingly being seen as a direct attempt to undermine the people of Sindh Province - just as Islamabad has shown itself limited in its willingness and ability to protect all the peoples of Pakistan.
The UNPO Presidency therefore urgently calls upon:
- The Government of Pakistan to respond immediately to the situation in Sindh Province by transporting displaced Sindhis to urban relief camps where access to basic facilities and employment is available;
- The United Nations, Friends of Democratic Pakistan, and Government of Pakistan to support an independent inquiry into that will speed and monitor aid deliveries to Sindh Province and identify remedies to failures that contributed to the disaster;
- The Friends of Democratic Pakistan Foreign Ministers to act on their public statements when they meet in Brussels on 15 October 2010 and ensure that reconstruction aid reaches people in Sindh, Balochistan and Gilgit-Baltistan and that institutional reform is a key element of any reconstruction effort.
