Violence against civilians encompasses both Muslim and Christian groups

Muslim civilians flee the violence in Central Africa

 "Civilians remain in constant fear for their lives, and have been largely left to fend for themselves," said Martine Flokstra, emergency coordinator for Doctors Without Borders. "In the northwest and in Bangui, we are currently witnessing direct attacks against the Muslim minority. We are concerned about the fate of these communities trapped in their villages, surrounded by anti-Balaka groups, and also about the fact that many Muslim families are being forced into exile to survive."

This statement expresses the concerns expressed by Doctors Without Borders about the growing civilian emergency in Central Africa.  The organization underlines the fact that the violence has been extreme, as civilians are caught in the cross fire of opposing groups.

Both Muslim and Christian civilian groups have been seriously impacted by the fighting that has taken in Central Africa.  Physician teams have treated patients many areas of the northwest.  A Muslim community of 2,500 people had to leave their village.  In Bouar, more than 8,000 Muslim people are effectively unable to escape the violence and are in many ways imprisoned because of the fighting all around them, making it impossible to flee.  30,000 Muslim refugees have already fled to Chad and another 10,000 have crossed into Cameroon.  People gather in displacement sites and near the airport at the Great Mosque, seeking refuge from the violence.  The majority of Christians also live in fear and have been displaced, with hundreds of thousands also living in what is described as appalling conditions.

Doctors with Borders continues to express their organization's concerns about the many thousands of civilians that amount to what is described as almost the entire civilian populations.  As one official said, "The indiscriminate and seemingly unstoppable violence has continued to reach new heights over the last months. Past actions and current efforts are insufficient in the face of the ongoing crisis.

This announcement by Doctors Without Borders was made as the International Criminal Court begins war crimes investigations of the militant groups and their leaders.  This Court investigation was announced one day ago, as the violence continues to escalate without resolution in a country torn by religious hatreds and strife.

In the meantime the country has elected Catherine Samba-Panza, 58,  to be the first woman to lead the nation.  Hers is an interim election with the term to be a little over a year.  The goal is for that interim election to be a step leading to national elections.

Need for aid in Ethiopia straining the capacity of Doctors WithoutBorders

 Guest - Emily Lindendoll - Doctors Without Borders- Unless the capacity to deliver aid is rapidly increased, there will be significant challenges in meeting the needs of Somalis fleeing to Ethiopia, the international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said  just days ago.

Refugee camps in Ethiopia are currently home to roughly 130,000 refugees from Somalia, the majority of whom have fled an ongoing food crisis and conflict. In recent weeks the number of people crossing the border into Ethiopia has increased to approximately 300 per day, up from 90 per day in September and October.

“At the moment, the capacity to receive more people and provide the necessary food, nutritional care, medical care, drinking water, sanitation and more, is grossly insufficient,” said Wojciech Asztabski, MSF project coordinator in Dollo Ado, Ethiopia.

While malnutrition and mortality rates have declined, more refugees are predicted to arrive in the refugee camps. The increasing number of refugees indicates that people in Somalia remain highly vulnerable. Nearly all refugees state that they left Somalia because of a severe lack of food, combined with increased insecurity.

"I didn’t want to leave Somalia, but the hunger and the fighting made life too difficult,” said a 39-year-old mother of four who recently arrived in Dollo Addo. “My husband and my mother are still in Somalia, we did not have enough money to travel, so I traveled alone with the children. We traveled by donkey cart for seven days and nights. Now my son is very sick, he can’t eat and every day he looks more exhausted."

MSF, in collaboration with authorities and other organizations, has assisted in the refugee camps since 2009. Since last May, MSF has dramatically scaled up its medical programs to help bring mortality rates under the emergency threshold of one death per 10,000 people per day, but the organization warns that the emergency is far from over.

“We should be expecting thousands more to come across the border over the next weeks,” said Mr. Asztabski. “The reception center and the transit camp, where people stay until they are settled in one of the refugee camps, are rapidly filling up.”

The transit camp currently hosts over 6,000 people, a number that is expected to rise by thousands over the coming weeks. “There are not enough latrines, nor enough shelter and drinking water. More capacity is needed here on the ground, and very quickly,” said Mr. Asztabski.

The existing refugee camps are currently full, and the reception center and transit camp are not equipped to receive people for prolonged stays. MSF warns that insufficient levels of shelter, water, and sanitation will further weaken an already vulnerable population.

"This place is making us ill,” said a refugee in the transit camp. “We have been here for 14 days, and here it is safe, but we have no place to sleep. The tents are overcrowded. Children and women are weaker than men, so they become ill.”

MSF is ready to provide life-saving assistance for a prolonged period, and is calling for the Ethiopian authorities to continue facilitating the necessary imports of medicines and materials, while allowing experienced international staff to provide necessary support.

Increased capacity by other agencies is also urgently needed. A new camp is scheduled to be completed and opened in a few weeks’ time. Under the circumstances, MSF calls for greater efforts to make the camp ready earlier in order to lessen the burden on the transit camp as soon as possible.

MSF has been working uninterrupted in Somalia since 1991.  The organization also assists Somali refugees in Ethiopia and Kenya. MSF is currently treating more than 22,000 vulnerable children in its nutrition programs in the region. Despite significant challenges, MSF teams have to date vaccinated more than 126,000 people against measles.

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Editor's Note:   Information from press release and press officer presented in its original form as recommended.

Child nutrition urgent need worldwide to reduce obesity, death

[caption id="attachment_4877" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Feed the Children"][/caption]

MWF - GHN Feature-- “If donors and policymakers are serious about reducing child mortality rates, then providing child-appropriate foods must be made a standard component of any pediatric program in the world’s ‘malnutrition hotspots’,” is the summation statement of a world study on child nutrition, aimed at G8 countries in what needs should be focused on globally and how.

Doctors Without Borders, also known as Medecins Sans Frontieres or MSF, found child mortality rates to be 50 percent lower among a large group of young children in the west African nation of Niger in 2010, following that country's receipt of nutritious supplements.  Their research findings have recently been shared in a press release about the needs of children and ways to reduce child mortality.

MSF tells us that this encouraging findings reinforce the need for international donors and policymakers to make high-quality foods a cornerstone of childhood health programs, especially in areas where malnutrition predominates, such as in Africa.

What researchers point out specifically is that malnutrition weakens the immune system, exposing a child to higher risk of death from other illnesses, such as malaria, respiratory infections, and diarrhea. Adding a quality supplemental food to an essential package of care—including vaccinationand effective treatment and prevention of primary ‘killer diseases’ of young children—will accelerate the fight against child mortality.

The MSF study reflects on how nations can cut child mortality rates, a mission discussed last year in Muskoka, Canada by G8 member states. The answer, accoding to MSF, is to include nutritional food supplements with medical supplies and other aid given to countries in need.

“Our preventive strategies focused on getting a nutritionally appropriate food to children during the most crucial time—the critical window of six months to two years of age—instead of waiting for them to start losing weight, and we observed child mortality rates to be lower by half,” said Dr. Isabelle Defourny, MSF program manager for Niger in providing evidence of how good nutrition can cut children's deaths.
dramatically.

At any given time, an estimated 195 million children are affected by malnutrition worldwide. It contributes to at least one-third of the eight million annual deaths of children less than five years of age. MSF and other organizations have been distributing supplies of nutritional products that are rich in milk, minerals and vitamins to approximately 150,000 children and found this program to be highly successful in reducing child mortality. The organization combines this with screening tests for mental and physical problems and focuses on tailoring foods to meet health care needs.

And it isn't just Africa and Asia and those countries known to have high rates of child mortality.  In the United States food security problems have been growing annually as reported in a study in 2005 and problems of obesity that experts saw are caused by eating starchy foods, the mainstay of the poorer diets, has been growing as a consequence.  Child obesity is reported by the Centers for Disease Control to have tripled in the United States in the past 30 years.  Information about proper nutrition becomes, therefore, an international concern.

“Providing young children with high quality nutritious foods has long been one of the foundational principles of successful malnutrition and child mortality reduction programs in Europe, Latin America and the United States, along with immunization, for instance,” said Dr. Susan Shepherd, MSF child nutrition advisor. “It’s time to stop applying different standards for children living in malnutrition
hotspots. We can save children’s lives today if the appropriate resources are put
behind similar interventions to those we deployed last year in Niger.”

Doctors Without Borders reports pharma giant 'turning its back on AIDSpatients'

Editor - Doctors Without Borders tells us that pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson is risking people's lives by not allowing HIV patients to participate in the Medicines Patent Pool.  That pool is set up to help lower prices of drugs and allow access to important medicines in the prevention of aids, especially for the poor in the develooping world, as the volunteer organization asks for public pressure on this matter.

[caption id="attachment_3980" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Babies born with AIDS"][/caption]



Johnson & Johnson holds patents on three key new HIV drugs.  Doctors Without Borders declare these drugs are needed badly by patients in the developing world, and so far the company has refused to license these patents to the Medicines Patent Pool that has been set up to increase access to affordable versions of HIV drugs.

“High prices mean patients in poor countries continue to be relegated to second-class care, with no choice but to take older, more toxic drugs we would no longer use in the U.S., and with almost no treatment options when the virus becomes resistant to the limited number of drugs available,” said Sophie Delaunay, executive director of MSF-USA. “By putting its HIV drug patents in the pool, Johnson & Johnson has a unique opportunity to transform this situation and save lives worldwide. Instead, it has chosen to turn its back on these patients.”

Johnson & Johnson holds very important patents on HIV medicines rilpivirine, darunavir, and etravirine. Rilpivirine is a promising antiretroviral (ARV) under development for use in first-line treatment regimens. Darunavir and etravirine are important for patients who have developed resistance to their existing treatment.

Johnson has declared it has reduced pricing, but the organization tells us the cost of these drugs is prohibitive; darunavir is priced at $1,095 per patient per year, and etravirine at $913 per patient per year in the world’s least-developed countries, most of which are in sub-Saharan Africa. Many developing countries have to pay even higher prices.

In December 2010, the National Institutes of Health, which holds the intellectual property rights for a manufacturing process for darunavir, put its patent for the AIDS drug in the patent pool. Johnson & Johnson holds the drug’s remaining patents.  The company, however, is reported to be blocking other companies from manufacturing and making darunavir available at prices affordable for patients in the developing world.

There are now more than six million people receiving lifesaving ARV treatment worldwide. Many of these people are in Africa and countries that have many people unable to afford high-priced drugs.

“We have patients who have no other treatment options other than Johnson & Johnson’s darunavir, which is so expensive that the South African government cannot afford it,” said Dr. Gilles van Cutsem, medical coordinator for MSF programs in South Africa and Lesotho. “MSF is now paying for these drugs, but this is just the beginning of the problem. Ten years after we put the first patients on antiretroviral treatment, we now have patients in our clinics who have become resistant to drugs available at affordable prices. We’ll soon be back in a situation where we’ll have to say there are drugs in the private sector, or in rich countries, that could treat you, but we cannot afford them.”

Doctors Without Borders issues call to Greece for humanitarian rightsof Turkey's migrants

[caption id="attachment_4443" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Map of Turkey"][/caption]


Athens, December 14, 2010 —Sandra Murilo, Doctors Without Borders  - GHN News Editor - With the world wondering about Haiti and concerned about the problems of war in different parts of the world, many people do not know about the humanitarian crisis taking place in Turkey.

Doctors Without Borders issues international alarm about migrant asylum seekers from Turkey crossing into the regions of Greece.

Migrants and asylum seekers kept in detention facilities in the Evros
region of northern Greece are in a critical situation, said the
international medical humanitarian organization Medecins Sans
Frontieres/Doctors Without Borders (MSF). In the last two months, the
number of migrants without official papers crossing the border from
Turkey to Greece has increased significantly, with 200 to 300 new
arrivals each day. As a result of the recent influx, detention
facilities are overcrowded and conditions in the cells are appalling. To
respond to the urgent needs of detained migrants, (MSF) has started an
emergency intervention in the Evros region, providing medical and
humanitarian assistance.

During an assessment carried out in
November in two detention centers (Venna, Fylakio) and three border
police stations (Soufli, Tychero and Feres), MSF documented the harsh
and inhumane conditions in which detained migrants are being kept. Most
of the detention facilities are very overcrowded, operating at two or
three times their capacity. Due to the lack of space, men, women, young
children and unaccompanied minors are being kept together in the same
cells. People have to sleep on the floor next to the toilets. Detention
facilities holding more than 100 people typically have only two toilets
and two showers, and there is a significant lack of materials for
cleaning and personal hygiene. Despite the presence of Ministry of
Health medical staff in most of the detention facilities (including
doctors, nurses and one psychologist), medical services are still
inadequate for the detainees’ needs due to the insufficient number of
medical personnel, the absence of interpreter services, and the lack of
medical screening and follow up of new arrivals. In addition, migrants
and asylum seekers receive little or no information about their legal
status and the detention system.

“The situation is critical for
all the people who have been detained. Migrants have no place to sleep,
they are not allowed to go out into the yard, and many of them are
obliged to live for weeks or even months in unacceptable living
conditions,” said Ioanna Pertsinidou, MSF’s emergency coordinator. “We
decided to intervene immediately for the provision of medical care and
humanitarian assistance.”

Since the beginning of December, an MSF
team has been in the Evros region providing health care and working to
improve living and hygienic conditions in the detention facilities. Two
MSF doctors are working in Tychero and Soufli border police stations
treating patients who are mostly suffering from respiratory and skin
infections due to the harsh living conditions. A logistician is working
to improve sanitation inside the facilities and the MSF team is also
distributing sleeping bags.

“What we witness every day inside the detention facilities is not easy to describe,” said Pertsinidou.

At
the Soufli police station, which has space for 80 people, there are
days when more than 140 migrants are detained there. In Tychero, with a
capacity of 45, MSF counted 130 people. In Feres, with a capacity of 35,
last night MSF distributed sleeping bags to 115 detained migrants. One
woman, who had a serious gynecological problem, told MSF that there was
no space to sleep and she had no other option but to sleep on the
toilet. In the detention centre of Fylakio, a few days ago several cells
were flooded with sewage from broken toilets. MSF has ensured the
disinfection of the cells and the toilets. In Soufli, where winters are
known to be harsh, with below-zero temperatures, the heating is not
working and there is no hot water. In many detention facilities, MSF has
seen many unaccompanied minors detained in the same cells as adults for
many days without being allowed out in the yard.

An immediate
and coordinated response is needed to respond to the current
unacceptable situation and to ensure humane and dignified conditions for
detained migrants. MSF urges the Greek government to immediately
implement measures providing for the reception of asylum seekers and
migrants under conditions which respect their human dignity. MSF also
urges the EU and its member states to share the responsibility of
receiving asylum seekers and migrants, rather than focusing on
restrictive measures, such as the deployment of rapid border

intervention teams.

Kenya pleads for assistance for Somali refugees

Geneva/Nairobi, GHN News - MSF --  At
least 700 Somali families who fled war in Somalia now face unacceptable
living conditions in spontaneous settlements outside the overcrowded
refugee camp of Dagahaley in Dadaab, Kenya, and medical authorities are worried.

The international

medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans
Frontières (MSF)  reports that the "situation for the refugees has become even more precarious.

With the rainy season underway, the situation for the refugees has become even more precarious. 

MSF
urgently calls upon the Kenyan authorities and aid agencies to reach an
agreement to ensure appropriate humanitarian assistance.  There are at least 3,000 people in the makeshift settlements.  Heavy
rains over the past 48 hours have flooded the area where the families
are settled, worsening the already harsh living conditions for those who
could not find shelter inside the refugee camp.



“Hundreds
of families have been living in makeshift shelters in a no man’s land
over the past four months, waiting to be re-located to a proper camp”
said Joke Van Peteghem, MSF’s head of mission in Kenya. “These refugees
are in dire need of assistance given the hardships they have endured.
With the onset of the rainy season, we must act now.”

Each
month, thousands of refugees, many of them women and children fleeing
the war in Somalia, cross the Kenyan border after an often treacherous
journey on foot. Today, they face alarming shortages of food, water,
sanitation, and adequate shelter; the refugee camp is severely
overcrowded and cannot accept them.  Although a site has been identified for newer refugees, relocation to the site has been delayed.

In
response, MSF has carried out rapid medical screenings of the refugees,
referring people in need of medical care to health facilities. MSF also
provided shelter materials to the 700 families, and, together with
other agencies, ensured the supply of water.

“We
are at a dead-end,” said Van Peteghem. “While we have distributed
plastic sheeting to the new refugee families, it is far from enough,
especially now that the rainy season has started. We call on the Kenyan authorities and aid actors to immediately facilitate their relocation to suitable accommodation.”

Dagahaley is one of three camps in Dadaab, Kenya that were set up in the early 1990s to house Somali refugees.  Camps
that had originally been built to accommodate 90,000 people are today
struggling to cope with close to 300,000 inhabitants.  MSF started to work in Dagahaley camp in March 2009, operating a 100-bed hospital with surgical and maternal health services.  More than 600 patients are admitted per month.  Four
MSF health centers provide vaccinations, antenatal care, and mental

healthcare, with an average of 10,000 patient consultations per month.

Doctors Without Borders responds to likely spread of water-bornediseases in Pakistan

GHN News Editor - "With the threat of more rainfall and new floods still looming, MSF
continues to provide affected and displaced people with basic
necessities to help them maintain a minimal standard of living and
prevent the spread of diseases."

Flooding began a month ago, uprooting thousands of people and creating

serious medical conditions that are being responded to with greater aid
from Doctors Without Borders,  as disease threats grow.

Doctors Without Borders/ Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is helping in
the affected areas, expanding its services in locations where thousands
of people are cut off from vital assistance.

To help prevent the threat of disease, MSF is increasing its
distribution of clean water  in larger towns and remote villages located
throughout the Charsadda, Swat, Nowshera, Lower Dir, and Dargai
districts in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.   They report they will, in
the coming days, start water and sanitation activities in Sindh and
Baluchistan provinces as well.

Teams are also assessing water supply needs throughout those areas impacted by the flood.

"One of the big worries is some families are using home pumps where
water is still contaminated, and this can lead to waterborne diseases,"
says Muhammad Shakeel, a member of MSF.

It’s worrisome that some families with small pumps at home have started
using their water source again, explained Muhammad Shakeel, a me's water
and sanitation team.  He goes on to say, "We will continue to provide
safe water until we can put in place a system to check if the water is
good enough for daily use."

More than 14,675 relief kits and 4,855 tents have been distributed  in Baluchistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa,
MSF reports.  Kits include such necessities asbuckets, soap, laundry
soap, a tooth brush, a jerry can, hygiene items for women, a towel,
plastic mugs, kitchen utensils, plastic sheeting, tents, a mattress, and
water purification tablets.

Health promotion workers are also going throughout the country educating
people about health risks and showing people how to use water
purification tablets.

At an emergency feeding program set up before the floods, MSF is
currently treating at least 300 children younger than 5 years old for
severe malnutrition.  It has also had to respond to an increasing number
of patients with acute watery diarrhea.  The worry is the outbreak of
widespread cholera.

The floods have become so perilous that in some northern reaches of
Sindh province, the rising water levels of the Indus River have driven
90 percent of people in areas such as Usta Muhammad, Dera Allar Yar, and
Ganakha from their homes. In southern Kashmir and southern Sindh,
floods have also forced families to seek refuge on higher ground, on
embankments along the main canals, railway lines, or roads where MSF is
now delivering relief aids.

More than 110 international staff are currently working alongside 1,200
national staff in pre-existing and flood response programs in Pakistan.

MSF has been providng aid to Pakistani nationals and Afghan refugees
from armed conflicts since 1988 and accepts no government funding,
relying instead on private donations.

Doctors Without Borders rushes aid to Pakistan victims in growinghumanitarian crisis

GHN News Editor - As the medical situation becomes more
dire each day in Pakistan, Doctors Without Borders has sent supplies
and medical personnel into stricken areas in the midst of a growing
tragedy.

As the flooding increases, Doctors without Borders observes how death

and injuries are followed by other health risks from lack of hygiene,
which is the present situation as the flooding in Pakistan continues.

From the beginning of the present crisis in Pakistan, Doctors Without
Borders, that refers to itself as MSF, in that wing that ventures out
into the field, health care has been provided through several existing
programs in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Baluchistan provinces.

At
the same time new health structures are being created and mobile
clinics set up in two others provinces where the flooding has spread in
the Sindh and Punjab.

Doctors worry about the spread of cholera.

Already
the doctors are finding some of the most common diseases are linked to
the desperate living conditions and the lack of clean water.

 “Out
of more than 10,000 consultations in the last two weeks, the most
common diseases we are treating are skin infections, respiratory
diseases and acute diarrhea,” said Dr. Ahmad Mukhtar, MSF’s medical
coordinator in Pakistan. “Among those patients, there are some suspected
cholera cases, and while we wait for official confirmation, we continue
to provide them with the necessary treatment.”

Cholera is endemic in parts of Pakistan, so it is not surprising to doctors to find the outbreak of new cases.

MSF treated 2,500 patients during a cholera outbreak in August 2009.

Cholera is a disease that one contracts by ingesting infected water or
food. It can spread very easily in unhygienic conditions. Once
contracted, cholera prevents one’s body from retaining water, leading to
high-volume diarrhea and rapid dehydration.

Treatment for cholera is with oral rehydration salts or, in more severe cases, intravenous drips.

“Cholera is one of the severe forms of acute diarrhea,” says Dr.
Mukhtar. “However, a few suspected cases do not mean that we’re on the
verge of an outbreak. We need to remain very vigilant and make sure that
we keep identifying and treating people with acute diarrhea as soon as
possible. We treat people with acute diarrhea exactly as if they had
cholera. Our staff in mobile clinics and in hospitals play a vital role
in identifying and following up possible cases in the community.”

Despite the response so far from volunteer doctors the problem overall grows more serious each day.



Overall, though, there is no
question that much more needs to be done to provide even basic relief to
people in the flood affected areas of Pakistan. More than two weeks
after the onset of the floods, too many people have still received too
little assistance.

Around Leh, MSF is distributing shelter, kitchen, and hygiene kits to
2,000 of the most vulnerable families. The kits contain blankets, soap,
jerry cans, some clothes, cooking items, and tarpaulins.

Flash floods in Leh are reported to have caused widespread destruction
and many homes been swept away. An estimated 25,000 people are affected,
with 150 deaths and hundreds of people missing.

“Despite the logistical challenges, we have managed to start
distributing relief items to those most in need. This is now the
priority,” said Dr. Teshome Ashagre Adebabai, MSF’s team leader in Leh.
“However, we are also assessing medical needs and are mobilizing our
resources to meet those needs as soon as possible.”

MSF is coordinating its efforts with Save the Children and local NGOs
in Leh. In Kargil, the organization will also distribute relief kits to
the most affected families to support the disaster management efforts of
the state authorities.

MSF has worked in Jammu & Kashmir since 2001.



Besides basic healthcare, MSF offers psychosocial counseling to a population traumatized by over two decades of violence

Pakistan pleads for aid from world community

NEW YORK -UN - GHN - At
a press conference August 6, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator asked for
international assistance for his country, Pakistan,  to help 4 million
people affected by the worst flooding in 80 years.

“It’s very urgent

that this gets released,” Martin Mogwanja said, explaining how
additional funds would pay for emergency food, health care, clean water,
sanitation and shelter over 90 days, as well as community restoration,
agricultural protection and logistical support for damaged transport
infrastructure.

The situation has created desperate circumstances for the people of Pakistan, Mogwanja explained.

The UN
Secretary-General has already authorized $10 million from the Central
Emergency Response Fund (CERF) for Pakistan, Mr. Mogwanja said.  But
that money, plus the $9.8 million received by the Organization’s local
emergency relief fund and the $16 million given to its agencies on the
ground, was not enough to mitigate the crisis spanning four of the
country’s largest provinces.

United Nations contingency funds are already running out, he explained.

Mogwanja told
UN officials the deadly floods, triggered by monsoon rains, had spread
throughout much of Pakistan, destroying or badly damaging 250,000 homes
and rendering 1.5 million people homeless.

More flooding is expected.

An estimated
1,400 people are dead, but that figure could rise as new bodies are
found.  The disaster is considered to be “on a par” with the 2005
Kashmir earthquake in terms of the number of people needing assistance
and damage to infrastructure.

The on-the-ground
response effort, led by the Pakistani Government’s National Disaster
Management Authority, had already evacuated by boat or helicopter more
than 50,000 people trapped on rooftops, in buildings and on small
islands, he said.  The United Nations had dispatched assessment response
teams in the affected south-west provinces.

“At this stage,
urgent relief is required for the hundreds of thousands of people who
are displaced and are taking shelter in school classrooms and any kind
of Government building which is available,” Mr. Mogwanja said.

People are running out of basic supplies.

Mogwanja
reiterated the desperate need of his country by saying, "The top
priority  to provide shelter and non-food items that include cooking
sets, buckets, blankets and hygiene kits as well as food, clean water,
sanitation and good health care in case of an outbreak of waterborne
diseases."

Asked why he
believed 4 million people had been affected when others had put the
figure at 12 million, Mr. Mogwanja said his estimates were based on data
from Pakistan’s provincial disaster management authorities.  The number
could rise if floods moving south along the Indus River caused more
embankments to break in southern Sindh province.

Mogwanja gave the
details of what Pakistan presently faces during the terrible flooding.
$150 million to $200 million for relief and recovery efforts would
likely be needed in the coming weeks and months, and possibly more if
the impact of flooding was severe in south Sindh.  The cost of repairing
damaged infrastructure, particularly vital irrigation systems for rural
farmers, could reach $1 billion.

In Khyber
Pakhtunkhwa province alone, 80 per cent of the water systems were now
polluted with silt and other runoff, Mr. Mogwanja said.

Aid from
international organizations has only reached an estimated 30 to 40 per
cent of the population; many people had yet to receive adequate food,
clean water and shelter.  154,000 villagers were isolated when 66
bridges were destroyed.

 Relief agencies have been using helicopters to distribute food.

Water-logged terrain has prevented people from burying the dead.

On the number of
missing persons, he said there was no reliable estimate, because not all
affected areas had been accessed and many families had been separated,
making it difficult to know who was alive.  Relief workers were trying
to find the parents of young children separated from their families.

Asked when
Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari would return to the country, Mr.
Mogwanja said he did not know.  He also declined to comment on the
President’s absence.