Aid agencies in Pakistan face having to stop work due to a funding shortfall, threatening support for the huge numbers displaced by conflict in the north-west of the country, Oxfam said on Thursday. Warning of a "humanitarian meltdown," the charity said it will have to close its operations in a month's time, and stop providing clean water, sanitation and other services to some 360,000 people fleeing fighting in the Swat valley.
"This is the worst funding crisis we've faced in over a decade for a major humanitarian emergency. Some 2.5 million people have fled their homes," said Jane Cocking, Oxfam's humanitarian director. "One month into this emergency, we're four million pounds short and will have to turn our backs on some of the world's most vulnerable people.
In the same period after the 2005 Pakistan earthquake, we had 14 million pounds committed." US envoy Richard Holbrooke said on Wednesday that the flight of 2.5 million people from the region amounted to the largest such flow in India and Pakistan since the countries split in 1947, calling it a "major, major crisis."
The campaign in and around Swat was launched under US pressure after Taliban fighters advanced to within 100 kilometres of Islamabad, flouting a deal to put three million people under Sharia law in exchange for peace. Oxfam noted that the United States is the biggest provider of UN funds for Pakistan, providing 12.5 percent, noting that Japan, the world's second largest economy, had given 1.4 percent, and Germany, the fourth largest, 1.3 percent.
"Besides little money going into the UN appeal the problem (is) also that even less money is being dispersed to frontline agencies from the appeal," it said. Cocking underlined the urgency of the situation. "With monsoon rains due by the end of June, serious health risks will increase as water sources become contaminated. At the time when the risks start to escalate we will be forced to turn off the taps for tens of thousands reliant on safe clean water," she said.
"The only reason we haven't faced a massive humanitarian meltdown is the generosity of families and communities of modest means who've looked after the vast majority of those who've fled the fighting.
"With so many mouths to feed, these communities will soon be running on empty. The world's richest nations need to dig much deeper into their pockets to help," she added. Oxfam is one of a number of aid agencies stretched by the unfolding Pakistan crisis. Others include ActionAid, CAFOD, Care, Concern World-wide, Islamic Relief, Merlin, Save the Children and World Vision. Rumours have swirled that a full-scale military offensive will soon begin in semi-autonomous South Waziristan, although the army has denied an imminent campaign in the region bordering Afghanistan.
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