Four million flood-hit Pakistanis still homeless: Red Cross
By IANSSaturday, January 22, 2011
ISLAMABAD - Over four million Pakistanis are still homeless, six months after massive floods devastated the country, the Red Cross has said. Many are returning to their homes to discover these are no longer inhabitable.
“Six months on from the devastating flooding in Pakistan, more than four million people remain in a desperate situation without adequate shelter,” The News International reported Saturday quoting a statement by the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC).
Families which have begun leaving camps and temporary shelters have returned to find that their homes are no longer inhabitable, leading to a “secondary wave of displacement”.
“The cruelty of this disaster is that millions of people were driven from their homes by the floods. They have endured miserable conditions, living for months under canvas or tarpaulins,” said Gocha Guchashvili, IFRC flood operations coordinator in Pakistan.
“Now they are returning home to almost nothing. Their houses, their fields and their livelihood are ruined,” she said.
Monsoon rains swept through the country in July and August last year affecting 21 million people, destroying 1.7 million homes and damaging over 5.4 million acres of crop land.
The IFRC urged donors for more donations, saying that its appeal of $135 million was only 59 percent covered.
“Full funding will allow the IFRC to support 130,000 families in their recovery over two years,” the statement said.
