IOM has agreed to coordinate the Emergency Shelter Cluster of
relief agencies responding to the worst floods to hit Pakistan for
80 years, following a request from the UN Humanitarian Coordinator.

According to government estimates, the floods in the northwest
of the country, which have affected some 1.5 million people, have
already resulted in at least 1,100 deaths. Large areas of the
country remain cut off and hundreds of villages have been inundated
by the flood waters.

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width="185">"Tens of thousands of people have lost everything
and are desperately in need of emergency shelter and other relief
items. An effective response to a disaster of this scale depends on
close coordination between all the humanitarian agencies involved
and the government," said IOM Regional Representative in Islamabad
Hassan Abdel Moneim Mostafa.

"IOM's job as cluster lead is to make sure that coordination
works as smoothly as possible – mapping the areas of greatest
need by standardizing data collection, collating and analyzing the
data, and then feeding it back to over 30 humanitarian agencies and
the government to deliver the right aid to the right people in the
right places," he added.

According to the government, the worst affected districts
currently include Peshawar, Charsadda, Kohistan, Shangla, Swat
Valley, Nowshera, Upper and Lower Dir  in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa;
Dera Ghazi Khan, Layyah, Mianwali and Rajanpur in Punjab; Kohlu,
Barkhan, Sibi, Bolan and Naseerabad in Balochistan; and the Upper
Neelam Valley in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

Abdel Moneim Mostafa, a veteran of IOM's emergency shelter
coordination following the 2005 earthquake in northern Pakistan, in
which 75,000 people died and 3.5 million were displaced, says that
the magnitude of the disaster is already huge and may be
growing.

"The metrological department expects more rain this week, which
may result in more flooding downstream in Sindh province (south of
the affected area). People are sheltering in public buildings and
the government and humanitarian agencies are using what stocks of
tents and relief supplies that they have. But much more help is
going to be needed from the international community," he says.

A joint government-UN assessment mission to Charsadda and
Nowshera districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Sunday, in which IOM
participated, concluded that all 29 Union Councils of Charsadda and
30 Union Councils of Nowshera have been severely affected by the
flooding.

According to the UN and the National Disaster Management
Authority (NDMA), in Charsadda, Nowshera, Peshawar and Mardan
districts 238,000 families have been affected by the floods. Of
these 137,000 need immediate shelter and other life-saving
assistance.

IOM is currently procuring 100 family tents and 1,000 kitchen
sets locally for distribution to destitute families in Charsadda
and Nowshera.

For further details, please contact:

Saleem Rehmat

IOM Islamabad

Tel. +92-300-856-03

Email: "mailto:srehmat@iom.int">srehmat@iom.int