July 01, 2007	Sunday	Jamadi-us-Sani 15, 1428

QUETTA, June 30: The Baloch Students Organisation (women wing) has said that the government has failed to launch relief and rescue operation in the flood-hit areas of Balochistan.

The BSO leaders said the cyclone and floodwaters played havoc with the lives of people and added that the calamity was as destructive as the October 8 earthquake.

Speaking at a news conference at the press club on Saturday, BSO (women wing) spokeswoman Farida Baloch said the ruling PML, PPP and the MMA had no vote bank in Makran and for that reason these parties were least bothered about the suffering of flood-hit people.

She said the champions of the Baloch rights and the so-called nationalists had also failed to raise the issue forcefully.

She said that had the matter been highlighted appropriately it could have attracted international institutions to come to the rescue of the helpless people.

Ms Baloch criticised human rights organisations, saying that they had not even issued press statements to express solidarity with the people hit by floods.

She appealed to the United Nations, European Union and international donor agencies to provide assistance to the affected people in Turbat, Gwadar, Pasni, Ormara, Khuzdar, Kalat, Nushki, Jhal Magsi and Jaffarabad.

She said that the government had huge funds to construct cantonments and launch what she called anti-Baloch mega-projects, but it had no money to carry out an adequate relief and rescue operation.

Meanwhile, Sardar Wali Mohammad, chief of the Reki tribe and the provincial leader of the ruling PML, demanded that the Balochistan governor and the chief minister should send relief teams to Mashkal that had been badly affected by flash floods.

At a press conference, he said that four days had passed, but relief work had not been undertaken in the Mashkal tehsil yet.

He demanded that people in marooned areas be rescued immediately.