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The monsoon floods in Pakistan have caused massive destruction and turned a displacement crisis in the insecure
western borderlands into a national disaster of mammoth
proportions. When the floods hit, almost all those displaced
from Malakand had returned home and were struggling to
rebuild lives in a region where much of the infrastructure
had been destroyed in fighting; 1.4 million more displaced
from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) were living in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) province. The disaster would have proved challenging under any circumstance.
The fragile civilian government, already tackling an insurgency, and its institutions, neglected during nine years of military rule, lack the capacity and the means to provide sufficient food, shelter, health and sanitation without international assistance. The Pakistan government and international actors should ensure those in the
flood-devastated conflict zones are urgently granted the
assistance they need to survive and to rebuild lives and
livelihoods. If military objectives dictate rehabilitation and reconstruction efforts, a population exhausted by conflict
could become a soft target for militants, making stability in the northwest even more elusive.
From the CIAO Database:
Pakistan: The Worsening IDP Crisis
Flooding Challenges Pakistan's Government and the International Community
Challenges of Pakistan's Governance System
Pakistan's Nuclear Posture: Implications for South Asian Stability
CIAO Atlas: Pakistan (political and economic profile)
Outside Sources: *
2010 Pakistan Floods (New York Times)
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/f/floods/2010_pakistan_floods/index.htm
Preliminary Damage Estimates for Pakistani Flood Events, 2010
http://cber.iweb.bsu.edu/research/PakistanFlood.pdf
Country Profile: Pakistan (WHO)
http://www.who.int/countries/pak/en/
News Focus: Pakistan floods
http://www.un.org/apps/news/infocusRel.asp?infocusID=142&Body=Pakistan&Body1=flood
* Outside links are not maintained. For broken outside links, CIAO recommends the Way Back Machine.