Flood waters recede but despair grows

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 23/02/2010 (5738 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

MAKLI, Pakistan — Jannah Soorjo was forced to give birth Tuesday in a sprawling Muslim graveyard in southern Pakistan filled with hundreds of thousands of flood victims, a reminder of the pain and despair gripping the country even as the floodwaters begin to flow out to sea.

The feverish 26-year-old mother is one of 500,000 women affected by the floods whom the United Nations expects will give birth in the next six months. Many of their children will enter a world where food and water are scarce and the risk of deadly disease is high.

“I gave birth to this baby, but how can I arrange food for him here,” Soorjo said, cradling her newborn son. “He seems to be sick, and we don’t have money for his treatment.”

The floods began over a month ago in the northwest after extremely heavy monsoon rains and surged south along the Indus River. The floodwaters finally started emptying into the Arabian Sea Tuesday, hours after swallowing the two final towns in its path, both of which had been evacuated, said disaster management official Hadi Bakhsh.

But the challenges of delivering emergency aid to 8 million people remained.

“The situation is extremely critical,” said Josette Sheeran, the head of the World Food Program, after touring flood-stricken areas with other top U.N. officials.

Her agency has managed to deliver food to 3 million people, but another 3 million require food aid, and that number could grow as authorities assess the damage the floods have done in the south, said Sheeran.

— The Associated Press