Posted on 10/28/2005 9:26:25 AM PDT by proud_yank
By ZARAR KHAN
Friday, October 28, 2005 Posted at 6:29 AM EDT
Associated Press
Muzaffarabad, Pakistan — The United Nations warned on Friday that it will run out of money and be forced to ground helicopters delivering desperately needed relief supplies to quake-hit northern Pakistan unless donors come through with the hundreds of millions of dollars needed to see 2.3 million hungry people through the winter.
Jan Vandemoortele, UN humanitarian co-ordinator in Pakistan, also urged archrivals India and Pakistan to open the disputed Kashmir border, saying this would help the relief effort -- if not solve logistical challenges posed by formidable Himalayan terrain.
Indian officials were set to arrive in Pakistan late Friday for talks on letting Kashmiris cross the so-called Line of Control -- a particularly sensitive issue for New Delhi because of a 16-year Islamic insurgency in India's part of Kashmir by militants seeking the territory's independence or merger with Pakistan.
The Oct. 8 quake is believed to have killed nearly 80,000 people, the vast majority of them in northwestern Pakistan and Pakistan's portion of divided Kashmir.
“The situation is quite grim. With the money we have already, and much of it obtained from our own internal emergency reserves, we can keep the helicopters running for one week,” Michael Jones of the UN World Food Program told reporters in Islamabad.
The UN refugee agency also warned that its own reserves of emergency supplies were dangerously low.
With landslides still blocking many roads, helicopters are a lifeline for isolated communities, delivering supplies and ferrying badly injured people to hospitals.
Halting flights would be calamitous for hundreds of communities that have received little aid, weeks before the frigid Himalayan winter hits.
Donor nations meeting in Geneva this week pledged $580-million (U.S.) for quake victims, but much of it hasn't arrived. The UN said it had so far received only about 20 per cent of the funds needed for its emergency relief effort -- a far weaker response than to other recent disasters, such as last year's Indian Ocean tsunami.
Mr. Jones said an estimated 2.3 million people needed food. With its current funds, the agency could help just 500,000 people for two months, he said.
Thousands of quake survivors are still turning up each day at makeshift clinics, suffering increasingly from disease such as scabies, diarrhea and pneumonia.
More than 3,400 people sought treatment around the devastated northern town of Balakot on Thursday -- 400 with suspected cases of acute respiratory infection -- said Sacha Bootsma, communications officer for the World Health Organization in Islamabad.
“People are coming from remote areas to be treated,” she said. “Increasing numbers are being treated for ARI [acute respiratory infection] because of the cold weather and lack of shelter.”
On Friday, Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf approved two billion rupees ($33.3-million U.S.) for reconstruction of homes, and said tents should be provided to the estimated 800,000 people without shelter within two weeks, according to his spokesman, Major General Shaukat Sultan.
In a goodwill gesture, Pakistan's historic rival India on Wednesday offered $25-million to the UN quake appeal.
Canada has pledged more than $57-million (Canadian) for relief supplies, tents and reconstruction in the quake-affected areas, which includes costs associated with sending the military's 200-member Disaster Assistance Response Team, or DART.
It arrived last week in Pakistan to provide pure water, medical services and rebuilding skills.
Indian and Pakistani officials were due to meet Saturday in Islamabad on opening the Line of Control to let Kashmiris cross to help each other rebuild. Mr. Vandemoortele said it would help the relief effort if aid workers could access Pakistani Kashmir from the Indian side.
India's military has started work on relief camps along the frontier and says that Pakistan could get building materials like cement and steel from Indian companies.
However, both sides are yet to work out how to open the frontier amid lingering mutual suspicions about the other's intentions.
A Pakistani Foreign Ministry statement on Thursday noted that Pakistani quake victims “do not have to cross the Line of Control find relief assistance.”
Major Farooq Nasir, an army spokesman in Muzaffarabad -- the capital of Pakistani Kashmir -- also said Friday that Pakistan has set up two more relief camps near the border.
In Islamabad, police said two municipal officials were arrested for allegedly failing to check faulty construction at an apartment block that collapsed in the capital during the quake -- the only building in the city to fall.
The official death toll from the quake in Pakistan rose Friday to 56,000, but central government figures have consistently lagged behind those of local officials, which put Pakistan's toll at about 78,000. Another 1,350 people died in Indian-held Kashmir.
U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker pledged long-term American support on a visit to quake-savaged Muzaffarabad on Friday.
“This is a long-term disaster because of the terrain it's in and the approach of winter. We are going to be here for a while,” he said Friday at a U.S. army field hospital that started treating quake victims in the city this week.
Declaring war on the infidels doesn't look like such a hot idea now, does it?
I can't help but wonder why the 1.3 billion Muslims in the world don't step forward to help their fellow Muslims. It strains credulity to realize that a movement that aspires to take over the world does not have the resources to rescue less than 2/10ths of one percent of its population.
Amen to that!
It's Ramadan, it is time for the Muslim countries to show their charity for the Pakistan earthquake refugees.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.