Called for priority to be given to the critical needs of 3 million children in need of urgent and critical support and asked about the dangerous situation in Sindh Province, Pakistan, with the danger posed by the breaching of Lake Manchar.
7th September 2022
House of Lords
Pakistan.
Lord Alton of Liverpool
(CB)
My Lords, I join the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, in thanking the Minister for the personal and deep interest he has taken in this. I declare my interest as co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Pakistani Minorities and vice-chair of the country group on Pakistan.
My first question concerns Sind province, where Lake Manchar is in danger of overflowing and 100,000 people have already been displaced. It has already had to be breached in order to stop an even more catastrophic situation emerging. What news can the Minister give us about that? My second question concerns children and follows on from a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Purvis. UNICEF pointed out yesterday that 30% of water systems have been damaged, 17,500 schools have been damaged or destroyed, 16 million children have been affected, and 3 million children are in need of humanitarian assistance and are at risk of water-borne diseases such as cholera, and of drowning or malnutrition. Children are always most at risk after terrible catastrophes such as this. What priority are we giving to trying to ensure that their critical needs are met?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
(Con)
My Lords, on the noble Lord’s point about Lake Manchar, we are watching that situation very carefully. He is of course correct that various efforts have been made to prevent the lake destroying the neighbouring lands, which are already flooded. I am fearful, given the forecasts. This was a catastrophic event; it was not just the monsoon rains but the glaciers that caused the flooding—the two things happened together. As the Minister in Pakistan, Hina Rabbani Khar, told me, it is the most vulnerable of communities, including children, who have been impacted. That is why we are working with NGOs on the ground and directly with UN agencies, and making our own assessments through the high commissioner, to identify the immediate needs in terms of sanitation, water and medicine in order to avert disease spreading. We are also looking at the medium-term needs of those vulnerable communities in particular to identify how, ultimately, once the floods have receded and some order is restored, we can get children back in school.
