MALNUTRITION: PAKISTAN: Floods worsen child malnutrition

30 August 2010 (IRIN)
Already malnourished children have been hit hardest by the floods,
- “The food they give us is insufficient to fill me or my three children and much of the rice goes to my husband, as he is a man and needs more, leaving only a small plate to be shared between the other four members of the family,” said Shamoona Bibi, at a camp for flood displaced people in Quetta, Balochistan Province. Such attitudes aggravate the problem, said Zarin Aslam, who volunteers with a charity to help women and children flood victims. “It is really women, especially those who are expecting or lactating, and children, who are most in need of food.”“At home, my children would never scavenge for food. We ate simply, living off spinach from our field, lentils and rice or ‘roti’ [flatbread] but we managed,” Rakhi Bibi, 30, a mother of five, told IRIN. Rakhi and her family moved to the same camp in Quetta from Jacobabad District in neighbouring Sindh Province 10 days ago. Apart from the apparent lower priority of women and children in the aid pecking order in some camps, poor conditions at camps for the flood-displaced, widespread malnutrition among children pre-dating the floods, and the danger of disease mean children are especially vulnerable.Even before the current floods, child malnutrition was high, with 36 percent of children underweight for their age. Researchers say up to 44 percent of rural children are stunted.For many families the situation has worsened sharply during the floods which have affected over 17 million people and killed at least 1,600.
Right now there is not enough food In a 26 August statement, the UN humanitarian coordinator in Pakistan, Martin Mogwanja, said: “We must act together to ensure that already malnourished children do not succumb to disease, and to prevent more from becoming malnourished and ill.” Data collected before the floods showed, according to the statement, that global acute malnutrition was already high. For instance, 27 percent of children under five were malnourished in Balochistan, 13 percent in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province (KP), and 17 percent in Punjab. Recent food price increases have aggravated the situation.Vicious circleThere are also warnings of a vicious circle, with contaminated water likely to lead to illness and further malnutrition, and malnutrition in turn increasing the risk of sickness. Deepak Bajrachariya, chief field officer for the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), told IRIN: “There is malnutrition and it could worsen because right now there is not enough food. We are arranging to provide high protein biscuits and other items to try and combat this.”Outside camps, there have been media reports of widespread hunger among flood victims. A minister in the Balochistan government has sought emergency help for people in Naseerbad District, who he said were “crying for food”.There have also been media reports of an equally desperate situation in areas like the Swat and Shangla districts of KP, which are hard to access. “Anything I receive I give to my children. Sometimes their mother, their grandparents and I eat nothing... They are growing weaker and my five-year-old daughter has high fever,” Abdullah Khan told IRIN by phone from Swat. He said the floods have “even wiped out the berries or grasses we could otherwise have eaten.”UNICEF has made an appeal for US$80 million dollars to combat child malnutrition by distributing supplements.
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