Berlin / Islamabad - In the coming months, Johanniter, in cooperation with UNICEF Pakistan, Germany's Department of Foreign Affairs, and the British relief organisation MERLIN, will care for over 80,000 refugees fleeing from ongoing fighting in northern Pakistan. Johanniter will focus on feeding malnourished women and children from the Peshawar and Charsadda districts.
"Living conditions are terrible. Power is only available sporadically, and due to the large number of people, relief organisations can only provide food and water to a portion of the refugees, " explains Naseer Kakar, country director of Johanniter in Pakistan. As a result, many refugees suffer from acute and chronic malnutrition.
Mobile Johanniter teams will examine the refugees, and distribute supplementary food and medicine. The project has a budget of 500,000 Euros. In addition, medical teams will also hold courses in the camps, covering subjects such as nutrition, health, hygiene, family planning, and prenatal care.
According to the United Nations, 1.7 million people are currently fleeing from ongoing fighting in northern Pakistan. More than 110,000 have fled to the districts of Peshawar and Charsadda alone. Most are taking in by relatives or find shelter in makeshift camps.
Since the 2005 earthquake, Johanniter has been actively involved in Pakistan, and has invested over 5.6 Euros (donations and third-party funds) in emergency aid initiatives, as well as health and rebuilding programmes in Kashmir, Baluchistan and the Northwest-Frontier-Province.
Please contact the press department for up-to-date information on the humanitarian situation in Pakistan.
[ Any views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not of Reuters. ]
A policeman holds his hand gun during a shoot out with gunmen at the scene of a bomb blast in Peshawar, located in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province May 28, 2009. ...
