Acceleration of Humanitarian Response to address the emerging needs of calamity hits areas in Balochistan, Pakistan

  

Situation overview

It’s been almost 7 months to the floods ravaging almost every part of Pakistan. The scale of devastation has been really high that families may not years to recover from the loses they bared. According the last situational report of UNOCHA still 1.8 million people are residing near polluted and stagnant floodwater ponds. As many of the people are living in temporarily shelters without having access to basic, the nutrition, food security and public health matter remain the highest concern.  In Balochistan the Naseerabad division have been affected mostly by the torrential floods and aftermaths are further worse. Due to the contaminated still water, there is rise in the cases of malaria and water born disease in Naseerabad division, this may further accelerate when the summer season will be on its peak from April 2023. The Naseerabad region is well known for its hot weather condition where temperature rise from 40 to 50 degree Celsius. The extreme weather conditions will increase the miseries of flood effected community already living in hazardous condition. Due to hard to reach areas there is probability that hundreds of community have received a very little or no humanitarian assistance till date. Most of the community have lost their livelihoods and are in dire need to be supported for rehabilitation and reconstruction of their lives toward a normal routine. Though the humanitarian sector with the assistance of GoP and GoB has provided an excessive assistance to the affected population during the recovery phase by providing food, temporary shelter and WASH services but there are different other sectors which needs to be addressed with the same zeal. The people of Pakistan especially Balochistan have never witnessed such high scale flood devastation in last 70 years. The flood has significantly affected the psychology of community and the major chunk of community especially the women and children are suffering with the post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other mental health problems. Psychological issues have like stress, Trauma, depression have increased in flood effected communities due to loss of their livelyhood, livestock and possessions. None has been done to counter mental wellbeing issues of communities affected by calamity.

Recommendations

1. Health

Naseerabad division was already suffering from lack of quality health facilities and floods have further worsen the situation. Thus there is a robust need to invest and enhance the coverage and reporting of Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response (IDSR) and strengthening, early detection, investigation, and response to any outbreak in Naseerabad division. 

The health sector needs to be on toes in order to Responding to the pockets of ongoing outbreaks of Malaria and water born diseases.  There is need to strengthen diagnostic capacities of health sector for early diagnosis of epidemic prone diseases in the flood affected areas. Due to scattered population and difficulties in accessibility the mobile health clinics and medical camps should be conducted on regular basis to avoid any human tragedy in flood affected population. The health facilities partially damaged by the floods should be repaired to increase the access of health services to the affected community. Last but not the least strict actions are required to ensure the availability of paramedics in area for the facilitation of communities. Metal health/Pyscho social support should be considered as the cross cutting theme for intervention in all sectors to address the PTSD issues of flood affected communities. Awareness raising on polio and special campaign should be launched to avoid any polio or other public health disease outbreak. Maternal and new born

2. Infrastructure

So much of vital infrastructures including houses, hospitals and schools have collapsed or partially damaged during the flood 2022 in Naseerabad division.

The situation has further deteriorated for women and children who have very limited access to protection, education and health services. The homelessness may further expose the ratio of physical, sexual and emotional abuse of children and women. The extreme hot weather of the region will increase the difficulties of the flood effected community. There is strong need to provide shelter services to the flood affected community by building shelters, repair maintenance of partially damaged schools 7 health facilities, and establishment of temporary learning centers to carry on the educational services for children.

3. Water Sanitation and Hygiene 

WASH will remain a major concern until the settlement of communities from the devastating effects of floods 2022. The WASH services need to be further increased

and strengthened by provision of clean drinking water, temporary latrines, and health and hygiene awareness among the communities on a larger scale to ensure provision of clean drinking water to the communities and avoid any disease outbreak. Water purification tablets should be distributed to address the uprising issues of water born diseases. 

4. Food security and Agriculture

Naseerabad division remains the green belt of the Balochistan where majority of community’s livelihood is directly associated with agriculture and livestock. The wheat crop remains the most beneficial crop of the farmers in Naseerabad regions. Due to heavy floods and prevailing flood water the majority of lands remained uncultivated. Due to the current situation wheat production may remain lesser then the previous years. In this scenario the agriculture sector needs immediate support in terms of seeds, pesticides, and fertilizer in coming months until the normalize situation of small scale farmers. The distribution of essential food and nonfood items should be carried out for further few months to support the community’s cope with their daily food needs until they settle down their routine matters of life.