Zardari makes first visit to flood victims

Asif Ali Zardari, Pakistan’s president, paid his first visit to victims of the country’s floods on Thursday, seeking to defuse widespread anger at his decision to visit France and the UK at the start of the crisis.

The disaster has sparked an outpouring of criticism of the government’s response. An estimated 14m people have been affected by the floods, with at least 1.8m made homeless and many left in need of emergency food aid and medical care.
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Pakistani television showed Mr Zardari walking along a mile-long barrage that is holding back the swollen Indus River at the town of Sukkur, before comforting several flood victims gathered at a nearby camp.

A senior government official acknowledged that Mr Zardari’s standing had suffered from his decision to go ahead with his foreign trips last week. “There is a build-up of criticism of the president,” the official said. “It may be too late to overcome the damage done to his credentials.”

Mr Zardari argued that he was taking Pakistan’s long-term interests into account by pushing ahead with a trip vital to bolstering his country’s European ties.

The military – which remains Pakistan’s most powerful institution, having ruled the country for decades – has taken the lead in the state’s response to the floods, which began in late July.

Audio slideshow: Pakistan’s devastating floods

Matthew Green reports from Pakistan, having just visited a makeshift camp for flood victims in Nowshera, one of the worst-affected areas in the north-west of the country

In Nowshera, a town north-west of Islamabad, flood victims said they had yet to receive state assistance.

“There is an overwhelming problem on the ground and inadequate efforts by the government to assist the people,” said Maimoona Jan, a widow and mother of five children waiting outside a doctor’s clinic. “Even the army’s work done by the helicopters is like a few drops in a river.”

The UN has appealed for $459m to fund a massive expansion of relief efforts to prevent disease and malnutrition claiming more than the estimated 1,600 lives already lost in the crisis.

The international response to the disaster intensified on Thursday as the US military deployed the first two of an additional 19 helicopters it plans to send to assist. Six US army helicopters diverted from Afghanistan last week have already begun delivering food in the Swat valley, a former stronghold of Taliban insurgents.

The UN says it is working to reach an estimated 6m people in need food aid, and hopes to reach 2m people in the most urgent need in about a week. Donations by Pakistani charities and state help is reaching some of the victims, but many more are still waiting for assistance.