ISLAMABAD, November 2, 2011 – Three months after widespread flooding that has affected over 5 million people in southern Pakistan, a critical shortage of funding and broad international disinterest has left millions of people at risk of illness, malnutrition and cold as the winter closes in.

Sixty-three year old Rowato Kolhi received more than a food package at CWS-P/A’s distribution point in Umerkot District, Sindh. He found caring people and a chance to tell his story. Rowato who was very sick with a fever was sighted sitting in a corner of the distribution center holding his token. One of the partner’s staff members noticed him and informed the CWS-P/A team. Rowato was immediately called in, provided a space, and advised to rest. It was when he felt a little better that he collected his food package.

The meteorological department has forecasted widespread rain from Tuesday to Thursday in southern Balochistan and lower Sindh. With the onset of winter adding to the challenges of affected families, shelter, particularly winterized, remains greatly needed. The plight of affected families is also being worsened by sky-rocketing food prices. Recently the country has witnessed high prices in almost all of the basic essentials. Reports have also shown medicines in Pakistan costing much more than neighboring India.

Most of the major crops like cotton, rice, and sugar cane and vegetables like onion, chilies, and others grown during the summer season in Sindh are badly affected by the recent rains and the resulting floods. For this reason, the prices of vegetables have increased to levels out of the reach of ordinary people.According to the estimates presented by the finance minister on October 14, 2011 in the National Assembly, an overall 11.3 percent loss in the production of cotton has been noticed.

Church World Service-Pakistan/Afghanistan recently distributed food packages in Umerkot District, where Kareema, a food package recipient, shared her story of unfortunate losses. A thirty year old mother and widow, Kareema, with her seven children including a newborn, no longer has a home in which to live, no financial resources, and has debt. With unimaginable personal loss and the circumstances she and millions of other individuals face following the devastation across Sindh, Kareema and her children have a multitude of challenges ahead.

Two women with very different circumstances face the challenges of poverty and loss of what little they had during the 2011 rains in Sindh without their husbands. Sattu, a seventy year old widow, lives with her only daughter in a village called Vehoko. Shahida, a twenty-eight year old mother of three children, resides in Sadiqa Ram Village where she struggles to cope with her husband’s unexplained disappearance six years ago. The absence of their husbands makes these two women, the elder nearly three times the age of the younger, feel the challenges of living in the poverty-stricken, rural Sindh district of Umerkot more than women who have a little security and support from having husbands to help bear the burdens. If life was not hard enough for these women, the rains and flooding that affected their villages in 2011 damaged their homes and took away their few belongings.

Nearing three months since heavy monsoon rainfalls hit Pakistan’s southern province, affected families in Sindh are still in need of immediate life-saving assistance. With global funding remaining minimal, at least three million people remain in dire need of food, clean water, medicines, and adequate shelter.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has said that assistance to more than 8.9 million people affected by floods in Sindh and Balochistan may come to a halt in November after depletion of relief supplies by the end of the current month.  Meanwhile, Pakistan’s economy may expand slower than forecast after floods devastated the nation’s southern region, a finance ministry official said. The economic growth rate may be 0.5 percentage point lower than the government target of 4.2 percent.

THATTA DISTRICT, SINDH, PAKISTAN: Floods this year again have created havoc and particularly for the communities residing in Mohammad Khan, Mirpurkhas, Tharparkar, Tando Allah Yar, Matyari, Badin, and Thatta districts. The catastrophe is undeniably a severe blow to the affected communities in Sindh Province, and the plight that survivors face is shared by Sakina, a fifty-five year of old woman.

The Supreme Court has asked the Sindh government to detail the steps it has taken for the rehabilitation of flood survivors and present a report within three weeks. A three-member bench headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry resumed hearing of former parliamentarian Marvi Memon’s complaint on non-implementation of the flood inquiry commission’s recommendations on Monday.