QUETTA, July, 22: The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has sought assistance of $2.7 million from donors to provide immediate shelter to around 150,000 victims of cyclone and floods in Balochistan.
The appeal came on July 18 in Geneva where, according to UNHCR sources, UN agencies had sought a total of US $38.3 million for its flood assistance programme in the province over three months.
According to Balochistan government’s initial estimates, the cyclone and floods affected 2.5 million people in the province and displaced over 360,000 people.
“Shelter is one of the most urgent needs of the affected people in Balochistan,” said activists of the UN and various NGOs who had taken part in joint assessments of losses in the province.
The floodwater has subsided as the day temperature has risen to 40 to 45 degree Celsius in different areas of the province.
“People in these semi-desert areas whose houses have collapsed are desperate to protect themselves from severe hot in daytime and they need blankets against the cold at night,” the NGOs’ activists said in their reports submitted to UN authorities who conducted a survey in the affected areas of Balochistan.
The sources said that soon after the floods, the UNHCR had sent relief goods from its Quetta warehouse to affected Afghan refugees and local people in Chagai and Noushki areas. The UNHCR had also provided sandbags to refugees’ camps in some areas of the province so they could be protected from high floods in seasonal rivers. It had transported over 250 tons of emergency relief items from its warehouses in Peshawar to Quetta for flood victims.
So far, the UNHCR has distributed 2,000 tents, over 5,000 plastic sheets, 6,150 sleeping mats, 5,000 blankets, 3,350 jerry cans and 1,000 kitchen sets in flood-affected areas.“In Balochistan, the UNHCR provided relief to Afghan refugees as some 4000 to 5000 refugees, living in camps in Posti, Lueejay Karez, Chagai and Muslim Bagh areas, were affected,” Babar Baloch, a spokesman for the UNHCR told Dawn on Sunday.
He said the UNHCR had also supplied relief goods and other assistance to the affected areas of Khuzdar, Kharan, Jhal Magsi and some other districts.
