UN-Afghan aid to Pakistan underway

The UN and Afghan relief agencies are dispatching aid for survivors of the earthquake that hit northern Pakistan and India on 8 October. Officials at the Afghan Red Crescent Society (ARCS) said on Monday they were providing 15 mt of dried fruit to quake victims in the two South Asian nations. “We are preparing to dispatch 10 mt of dry fruit to the quake-affected areas in Pakistan, while we have already sent 5 mt of dry fruit to India yesterday,” ARCS Disaster Management head Javid Qanie said, adding they were waiting only on official permission from Pakistan to start deliveries. “Today or tomorrow, we will send the aid to Pakistan.” The Afghan government and the UN World Food Programme (WFP) agreed to send 65 trucks from WFP’s Afghanistan operation to assist in the transport of life-saving relief supplies to quake-hit areas in Pakistan, WFP said. “The trucks will transport food and non-food items urgently needed by the hundreds of thousands of people, many of whom have been without food and shelter since the quake struck,” said Charles Vincent, head of WFP in Afghanistan. The UN said more four million people had been affected by the quake and one million were in dire need of relief, while more than 2.5 million survivors needed to be re-housed. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said about 200,000 winterised tents were urgently needed. On Sunday, a joint convoy of more than 60 trucks from the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and WFP, carrying 1,500 tents, 20,000 blankets, 50,000 plastic sheets and 10,000 jerry cans, was set to leave Kabul for northern Pakistan, according to Nader Farhad from UNHCR Kabul. WFP Afghanistan has loaned WFP Pakistan 1,000 mt of wheat flour and provided 40 mt of dates donated by the government of Qatar. The dates were being sent from the WFP’s warehouse in Quetta to quake-affected areas, according to WFP. WFP will be setting up five UN base camps in the worst-hit locations in Pakistan to co-ordinate the relief operation. WFP has also flown in emergency response teams to Pakistan from Afghanistan and other parts of the world to help with the operation. WFP Afghanistan will provide assistance as needs evolve, Vincent said. Meanwhile, the Afghanistan government has provided four helicopters, along with 34 medical personnel and 4 mt of medicine. “Our medical personnel established a 50-bed mobile hospital, which has treated more than 800 wounded and conducted 70 major surgeries” Dr Ahmad Sha Shakuhmand from the health ministry said.