NAROWAL, Aug. 23,2013 (Sumeera Riaz / UPI Next) — For the fourth summer in a row, flash floods triggered by torrential rains have hit Pakistan, claiming scores of lives and displacing more than a million people. Yet with thousands of people still cut off by the floods, an official says the government has refused help from humanitarian organizations this year.
“We do not need foreign aid to deal with the current disaster, and the Pakistan army has refused the assistance from foreign aid agencies,” Brigadier Kamran Zia, chief of operations for the National Disaster Management Authority, told UPI Next.
The floods have left hundreds of thousands of children vulnerable to water-borne diseases caused by pollution and poor sanitation, a UNICEF assessment found. The organization says the newly elected government, in office just two months, has not asked any U.N. agencies in Pakistan for help.
Read more Flood relief under control, Pakistan’s government says – UPI.com.
