by Roger McKenzie

International editor

THE United Nations children’s agency warned on Friday that a year on from Pakistan’s devastating floods, an estimated four million children continue to be in urgent need of humanitarian assistance.

The warning from Unicef also said that a desperate shortage of funds was a severe obstacle to recovery.

Authorities in Pakistan’s eastern Punjab province are now racing against time to evacuate people from areas affected by the overflowing River Sutlej. 

Since August 1, rescuers have evacuated more than 100,000 people from marooned areas in the districts of Kasur and Bahawalpur.

More than six months ago, dozens of countries and international institutions at a UN-backed conference in Geneva pledged more than $9 billion to help Pakistan recover and rebuild from last summer’s floods. 

But most of the pledges were in the form of loans for projects, which are still in the planning stages.

“This season’s monsoon rains are worsening the already challenging conditions for flood-affected communities, tragically claiming the lives of 87 children across the country,” Unicef said in a statement.

An estimated 8m people, around half of whom are children, continue to live without access to safe water in flood-affected areas and more than 1.5m children still require lifesaving nutrition interventions in flood-affected districts.

Unicef’s current appeal of $173.5m remains only just over half funded.

Unicef’s representative in Pakistan Abdullah Fadil said: “Vulnerable children living in flood-affected areas have endured a horrific year.

“They lost their loved ones, their homes and schools.”

Last year’s floods caused more than $30bn damages as large swaths of the country remained underwater for months, affecting 33m people, killing 1,739 and destroying 30,000 schools, 2,000 health facilities and 4,300 water systems.

Unicef said that one-third of children were already out of school before the floods, while malnutrition was reaching emergency levels and access to safe drinking water and sanitation was worryingly low.

The children’s agency said because of support from the international community, aid reached 3.6m people with primary healthcare services. 

Access to safe water was enabled for 1.7m people in areas where water networks were damaged or destroyed, reaching over 545,000 children.

Mental health support was also provided to 258,000 children, it said.

Unicef called on Pakistan and aid agencies to increase and sustain investment in basic social services for children and families.

“The flood waters have gone, but their troubles remain, in this climate-volatile region,” said Mr Fadil.