I am talking about the post-earthquake horror in Pakistan.
I can’t say which is worse: embarrassment and shame that I haven’t blogged this yet? Or embarrassment and shame that virtually nobody in the blogosphere has written a single thing about this.
But worse than embarrassment or shame is the horrible situation in Pakistan, where tens of thousands have died, and tens of thousands more, including children, still have not received any aid.
Let’s look at the facts:
50,000 dead, maybe more, many of whom were children, who were in school at the moment the quake hit.
10,000 more children are facing imminent death due to injury, infection, disease, starvation, dehydration, exposure to the sub-zero temperatures at night. 120,000 children are at risk.
These figures are conservative. And aid money has not been coming.
Almost two weeks after the quake, less than 14 per cent of the UN’s emergency appeal for £180 million has been received.
Unicef, the UN children’s organisation, yesterday estimated that 10,000 children will die in weeks. The figure was described as “conservative” by a UN field worker.
Although the official death count remains at 49,739, local authorities put it at almost 80,000.
UN relief coordinator Jan Egeland clarifies the urgency:
“The world is not doing enough,” Egeland said in Geneva. “We should be able to do this.”
He called for “a second Berlin air bridge” — nonstop flights reminiscent of the U.S. and British airlift of essential supplies into West Berlin in the late 1940s when Soviet troops blocked the city’s road links to the West for nearly 11 months.
“We thought that the tsunami was as bad as it could get. This is worse,” Egeland said. “The race against the clock is also like no other one. There is a terrible cutoff for us in the beginning of December, maybe even before, when there will be massive snowfalls in the Himalaya mountains.”
To help, you can give to Unicef or the Red Cross/Red Crescent. (Beware of scam artists. Stick with the established international organizations.)
Also, there’s a site with local Pakistani emergency info (in English).
Why does this get scant coverage in American media? Why is BBC World virtually they only coverage to be found on dish or cable?
