Re: Refugees: Looking for a home
Fund crisis threatens Swat relief
By Danny Aeberhard
BBC News
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Major aid agencies have warned that a funding crisis is threatening attempts to help people who have fled the fighting in Pakistan’s Swat valley.
The nine charities said they needed $42m to provide emergency supplies for displaced families.
One of the charities, Oxfam, said it would have to pull out if more money did not arrive by mid-July.
Some 2.5m people have fled the fighting. Many of them are being looked after by families and communities.
Since April, when the Pakistani military launched its campaign to take back control of the Swat Valley region from Taliban militants, aid agencies have been struggling to cope with the sheer number of people who have had to flee their homes.
Oxfam’s humanitarian director, Jane Cocking, has described this as the worst funding crisis the agency has faced for a major humanitarian emergency in over a decade.
Aid workers fear that the onset of monsoon rains in July could stretch resources even further - increasing the risk of diarrhoea and malaria for the displaced people.
However, in spite of this desperate situation, things could actually be a lot worse.
The head of another charity, Carolyn Miller of Merlin, said they would be facing a “humanitarian meltdown” were it not for the generosity of Pakistani families and communities of modest means who are looking after the vast majority of these people.
The world’s richest nations, she said, needed to dig much deeper in their pockets to help.