The national dailies have reported from Islamabad (January 27) by quoting Unicef as saying: "Pakistan's Sindh province, hit hard by last year's floods, is suffering levels of malnutrition almost as critical as Chad and Niger, with hundreds of thousands of children at risk."
The report further said: "A survey conducted by the provincial government and the UN Children's Fund revealed malnutrition rates of 23.1 percent in northern Sindh and 21.2 percent in the south. Those rates are above the 15 percent emergency threshold set by the World Health Organisation and are at par with some of the poorest parts of sub-Saharan Africa. Northern Sindh also had a 6.1 percent severe acute malnutrition rate and southern Sindh had 2.9 percent, both far above the WHO thresholds."
Unicef chief of Communication Kristen Elsby told Reuters: "We are looking at hundreds of thousands of children at risk." Elsby further said it was unclear if the August's floods had caused a spike in malnutrition, but that it had revealed the extent of the problem because babies and mothers were being screened for the first time. "People were already vulnerable and this kind of kicked the chair out from under them," she said. It appears from the report that a human disaster like Chad and Niger lies in wait in Sindh.
The people of Sindh have no more hopes from the federal government as despite attending the international conference on climate change in Islamabad (January 13, 2009) and receiving categorical warning of devastating floods about 19 months ahead by the participants experts, the PM miserably failed to take pre-emptive measures to reduce ruination of flood. On the contrary, his statement was on record by claiming that Sindh has faced low loss in floods. In the foregoing, I request the UN Secretary General of UN to personally intervene and take measures to avoid Chad and Niger-like situation in Sindh as reported by Unicef.
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