UN chief appeals for aid as flood crisis worsens in Pak

ISLAMABAD - UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has urged the world to provide more aid to flood-ravaged Pakistan, as over 20 million people have been made homeless and new torrents inundated villages.

Ban is in Pakistan for talks with government leaders and to see the flood zone.

“I am here to see what more needs to be done and to urge the world community to speed up the assistance to the Pakistani people,” The Dawn quoted Ban, as saying.

The UN had earlier said that Pakistan would need billions of dollars to recover from he unprecedented devastation caused by the country’s worst ever floods.

Over 1,600 people have been killed as raging floodwaters continue to wreak havoc in the country.

UN Special Envoy for Assistance to Pakistan, Jean-Maurice Ripert, said that the UN is still calculating specific figures, but “the emergency phase will require hundreds of millions of dollars and the recovery and reconstruction part will require billions of dollars”.

Ripert also said that the foreign aid could be difficult to procure given the ongoing financial crisis around the world.he UN has estimated that the deluge, which is being described as the worst in the last 80 years, has affected over four million people.

Relief and rescue work has been hit badly by continuous rains, particularly in the north western region. (ANI)