ISLAMABAD, 27 October 2005 — Governments and other donors told the United Nations yesterday they were pledging an additional $580 million for Pakistani earthquake victims, but UN officials said it was unclear how much was going specifically to the UN’s emergency relief appeal.
“The good news is that we have very good pledges, but the bad news for us is that too little is committed to the UN’s flash appeal,” top UN relief coordinator Jan Egeland told reporters after a donors meeting in Geneva yesterday. Egeland said it was impossible to discern what funds would be going to the United Nations’ appeal for nearly $550 million and what would be going to other emergency efforts or even for reconstruction later on.
“Pakistan will advance a demand of $549 million at the UN conference,” said Muhammad Mian Soomro, leader of Pakistan delegation to the conference and chairman of the upper house of the Parliament, before his departure for Switzerland.
Soomro told Arab News,”It is high time we let the world community know of the kind of disaster the earthquake has caused and how we are managing to rehabilitate our people”.
He said it was the UN secretary-general who had called this conference and “on our part we will simply present facts about the losses to life, property, immediate threat to many more lives.”
