Name: Malnourished and without schools: Pakistan's children after the flood | DW News
Uploaded: 2022-10-14T18:12:50.000Z
Duration: 7 min 12 s
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Pakistan has been enduring severe monsoon weather since June of this year, which has brought rainfall nearly three times the national 30 year average.

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Latest figures say that almost 1500 lives were lost in the torrent.

Now, the greater danger is waterborne disease.

Children are particularly vulnerable to dengue fever, which is currently spreading fast.

Malnutrition is the other enemy of aid agencies like UNICEF, who say nearly half of the non adult population in flood affected areas is at risk.

We'll speak to someone on the ground in Pakistan in a moment, but first a report from the Swat Valley looking at just one child, One among the 16 million Children in Pakistan affected by these unprecedented floods living day to day and thinking of his future Mohammed Shahrukh says he was lucky to survive the raging flood that ravaged his hometown in Northern Pakistan's Swat Valley.

Even as people fled low lying areas, many houses were swept away.

For now, he's working in the field with his father instead.

I am now afraid that the floods will also bring disease.

The roads are blocked here, The sick or dying in their houses because the infrastructure is completely damaged.

The shark's village is now cut off as the flood swept away the deliberated road network and bridges.

This is the only school in the area that stands still, all the residents now hoped to send their Children here.

I am here to assess if we can accommodate all these Children.

I don't expect many students to come to school anyway, maybe only the older ones as the younger Children are still traumatized.

He doesn't want his son to travel a long distance to school until roads and bridges are rebuilt because he is very scared.

This area was unsafe already before the floods, two Children had died while coming home from school.

We had built two bridges after that for the safety of the Children.

But now those have been destroyed by the floods.

For now shadow is trying to keep up with the studies at home and to help his younger siblings too.

But they worry about what more rains could bring.

It has started raining again and there is a possibility of new floods.

My house is old and we can't rebuild it because my father is a laborer.

Now I request the government to build a school for us that no snow, no water, no flood can ruin.

So we can continue our education in peace.

Such a school is likely to remain a dream with government aid yet to reach remote areas like this one.

The future of Children here remains uncertain And joining me now from soccer in Sindh province is UNICEF's Pakistan Representative Abdullah Fadil Mr Fadell.

First, the education of some 670,000 kids is in doubt after more than 18,000 schools were either partially or fully destroyed.

How soon do you think these Children can go back to school?

Um well not soon enough but unfortunately they don't have schools to go to.

Um what we did over the last few weeks was actually set up temporary learning centers.

Um where for the first time you have actually people, Children who have never set foot in a learning space and learning for the first time.

And now they're saying we want to really go to real schools as soon as this climate is over.

No, I mean Pakistan has normally 20 Three million Children out of school.

Almost 12 million of that come from the provinces that are hit really are in dire dire need of going back to school as soon as possible.

What are the other immediate threats you are seeing in the immediate aftermath of these floods?

Well you started your question with education.

But really what we're facing is a catastrophe in malnutrition.

We've seen Children who are born on actually over the last 456 weeks were absolutely malnourished this area again this province.

And the districts that are actually have the worst indicators of what we call general acute malnutrition.

Uh the emergency levels usually 15% in this district is almost 50% already.

You had communities that were really struggling facing malnutrition then get fever, malaria skin diseases because of the stagnating water.

And we're afraid more Children will die if we don't act quickly.

Has also launched an appeal to raise about $160 million to assist Pakistan with reconstruction and post flood efforts.

Um well, somebody started money was pledged.

But unfortunately it hasn't reached us fast enough yet.

The 160 million actually was only for the initial saving uh lives.

Now, what the need is actually is quite huge.

And actually this was our first assessment in the next two weeks.

We will come back with further assessments.

But even the 160 million we asked we don't have much of that yet.

Can Pakistan recover without international assistance?

Pakistan cannot recover without international support.

I mean this climate is environmental, climate change and Pakistan has not contributed to climate change.

Its countries uh that are developed that have contributed significantly.

And we're hoping those countries will assist because tomorrow as our Secretary general said, it could be us that are in this dire situation.

So Pakistan actually needs a lot of help.

But for now we need to save lives immediately.

And that's why we're saying please support all the entities you can so that more Children don't have to die in the next few weeks.

 Abdullah Father UNICEF's Pakistan representative, Thank you so much. 