GENEVA: The devastating floods in Pakistan will place huge strains on efforts to get food into Afghanistan to relieve its catastrophic humanitarian crisis, the United Nations warned on Friday.

The UN’s World Food Programme said much of the food aid transited through Pakistan by road — a network that has been severely affected by the worst floods in the country’s history. “We’re focused absolutely on the needs of the people in Pakistan right now but the ramifications of what we’re experiencing here go wider,” WFP’s Pakistan country director Chris Kaye said.

“We’re becoming very, very concerned about the overall food security, not only in Pakistan in the immediate and medium term, but also for what it’s going to imply for the operations in Afghanistan.

“Pakistan provides a vital supply route into Afghanistan,” he said. Large amounts of its food enter via the port of Karachi.

“With roads that have been washed away, that presents us with a major logistical challenge,” Kaye told reporters in Geneva, via video-link from Dubai.

“WFP has procured over 320,000 tonnes in the past year to support operations in Afghanistan. The floods in Pakistan are going to put a huge dent in that capability.”

He said there was a “major problem” in restoring agricultural production in Pakistan to feed its own people and continue supplying food to Afghanistan.

A further issue was that the wheat harvest was being stored in flooded areas of Pakistan, and “a large proportion of the wheat has been washed away”.

He said the food security situation in Pakistan was “grave” even before the floods, with 43 per cent of people food insecure and the country ranking at 92 out of 116 on the Global Hunger Index.

Monsoon rains have submerged a third of Pakistan, claiming more than a thousand lives since June and unleashing powerful floods that have washed away swathes of vital crops and damaged or destroyed more than a million homes.

Published in Dawn, September 3rd, 2022

Must Read

Opinion

Editorial

The ban question
Updated 02 Dec, 2024

The ban question

Parties that want PTI to be banned don't seem to realise they're veering away from the very ‘democratic’ credentials they claim to possess.
5G charade
02 Dec, 2024

5G charade

THE government’s lofty plans for the 5G spectrum auction are an insult to the collective intelligence of the...
Syria offensive
02 Dec, 2024

Syria offensive

AFTER several years of relative calm, the Syrian civil war has begun to heat up again, with Idlib-based rebel...
Flying ban reversal
Updated 01 Dec, 2024

Flying ban reversal

Only the naive can expect the reinstatement of European operations to help restore PIA’s profitability.
Kurram conflict
01 Dec, 2024

Kurram conflict

DESPITE a ceasefire being in place, violence has continued in Kurram tribal district. The latest round of bloodshed...
World AIDS Day
01 Dec, 2024

World AIDS Day

IT is a travesty that, decades after HIV/AIDS first perplexed medics, awareness about the disease remains low in...