Floods in Pakistan: Welthungerhilfe increases aid to 500,000 euros   

© Lucia Ennes / Concern (13.08.2010) Welthungerhilfe is extending its financial support for the victims of the flooding, and is providing a total of 500,000 euros. The money is being used to buy additional aid goods locally, which will be distributed amongst those in need over the coming days and weeks.

In a joint operation between Welthungerhilfe and its long-standing European partners, Concern and Cesvi, as well as local Pakistani organisations, the aid goods are being transported to the affected villages in trucks. Aid is being provided in a total of five districts: in the Swat Valley and Charsadda 12,000 families are receiving clean drinking water, and over 30,000 people in the Swat Valley and Charsadda are receiving food packages, plastic tarpaulins, mosquito nets, mattresses and blankets. In addition, a field hospital has been set up in the village of Cheena in the Mirza Dher region, and hundreds of patients are being treated there every day.
 
"The people on the spot here feel that they have been let down up to now. We simply can't abandon them to the floods, instead we must back our promises of aid up with action", is how Jürgen Mika, Welthungerhilfe's Head of Project in Pakistan, describes the situation in the crisis region.

Tomorrow more people in the Nowshera district will receive tangible assistance. More than 700 people in one village are receiving urgently needed food, such as flour, lentils, beans and salt, as well as drinking water. In addition, over the next few days reconnaissance teams will set off for districts such as Shangla and Batagram that have been completely cut off up to now, and will prepare the way for deliveries of aid.

Jürgen Mika is available for interviews in Pakistan.