The ‘slow tsunami’ of floods hitting Pakistan is being met by an even slower response from the international community, UNICEF’s South Asia director told Europolitics, meaning the EU and other major humanitarian actors are missing a unique chance to save tens of thousands of lives.

A major problem, says Daniel Toole of the UN’s children’s fund, is that the disaster is “unprecedented” in its scale and complexity, but not in death toll. “Not yet,” he warns, because the slow unfolding of the disaster brings with it unusual pros and cons. With a low initial death toll, the public, foreign governments and agencies were not moved to respond as they did with the Asian tsunami or the Haiti earthquake, but there is still a window to act before, for example, the 70,000 predicted deaths from preventable water-borne diseases.

“If I compare to the tsunami or Haiti, the response has been much, much slower and much, much smaller because I think people don’t understand the gravity and the scale of the situation,” Toole said. “I’ve just never seen an emergency that goes for 1,500 kilometres,” he added, equivalent to the distance from Brussels to Rome. In addition to different weather and geographic conditions from inaccessible Northern mountain ranges to the Southern alluvial plains, he explained that a fluid and very dangerous security situation made the humanitarian response difficult to plan.

“I CAN’T PAY WITH PLEDGES”

The EU has donated €200 million as a whole, including €70 million from the Commission, but Humanitarian Aid Commissioner Kristalina Georgieva has already warned that much more would be needed, even in the short term. Toole reported that UNICEF, which is coordinating the vital water and sanitation work for all of Pakistan, has received nothing from the EU. “We’re still talking with the EU about a contribution, but that’s a call I made ten days ago and I can’t pay with pledges, or buy supplies with commitments,” he said. “For this current emergency phase we need US$141 million, of that we have had about US$60 million but most of it is spent,” he added.

A comprehensive, decisive response, Toole argued, will also send a clear signal to communities that UN workers are there to help the Pakistani people, despite Taliban propaganda against foreign aid workers, which have resulted in repeated threats and attacks. “There are areas where the UN had not been operating because of the security risks to our staff but where we are, we are actually extending our reach now because of the extraordinary nature of the crisis,” he explained.

The Pakistani Ambassador to the EU, Jalil Abbas Jilani, told Europolitics that like Toole, he hoped donors would see the existence of terrorist groups within Pakistan as a reason to help the country, not refrain from donations. “This is a major disaster and Pakistan’s resources are already stretched by the war on terror,” he explained. “We are really grateful to the EU and international bodies for their prompt relief assistance, but given the magnitude of this disaster, more of their generous assistance will inevitably be needed,” he said.