National Assembly Speaker, Chaudhry Amir Hussain, has urged the World Health Organisation (WHO) and International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to enhance their support for ongoing relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction work in the quake affected areas of NWFP and Azad Jammu and Kashmir.
Chaudhry Amir Hussain, who met with the Director General of the WHO and the Vice President of the ICRC in Geneva, said that October 8 earthquake caused great tragedy. However, the government was doing its best to alleviate the sufferings of people.
The Speaker informed them that the rehabilitation of the victims was the top priority of the government. To accomplish this gigantic task of reconstruction and rehabilitation, Pakistan needed massive international support, the speaker said.
The National Assembly Speaker also held extensive consultations with parliamentary delegations from major donor countries on the sidelines of the 113th Assembly of Inter Parliamentary Union (IPU) seeking their support to influence their governments for greater financial and material assistance to Pakistan during the forthcoming OCHA-sponsored Ministerial Donors' Conference scheduled to be held here on October 26, 2005.
Given the scale and spread of disaster, which had resulted in the confirmed death of 50,000 people spread over 28,000 kilometers of mountainous terrain, parliamentarians assured him that they would strongly urge their governments to not only generously donate in the Donors' Conference but continue their support for rehabilitation projects in years to come.
Chaudhry Amir Hussain drew their attention to the plight of children, who had suffered the most in the quake-affected areas. They appreciated the detailed, personal briefing given to them by the Speaker National Assembly, which had enabled them to get a better understanding of the disaster.
During his meeting with Dr Lee Jong-wook, Director General World Health Organisation, the National Assembly Speaker extolled the efforts made by the WHO in providing immediate relief to the affected people and hoped that similar spirit would be displayed during the reconstruction phase.
He greatly lauded the fact that the WHO was amongst the first international organisations to reach the disaster areas. Dr Lee assured him of WHO's continued assistance in years to come.
During his meeting with Jacques Forster, Vice President of the International Committee of Red Cross, Chaudhry Amir Hussain thanked the ICRC for their immediate response to the humanitarian disaster in particular by setting up field hospitals in far-flung areas.
Forster informed him that in addition to an emergency flash appeal launched by the OCHA, ICRC had separately launched an appeal of Swiss Frank 30 million to meet this unprecedented challenge. He assured Speaker National Assembly of ICRC's continued presence in the region.