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Food prices have skyrocketed in Pakistan at the start of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, after vast stretches of crops were destroyed by flooding.
The rising prices threaten to amplify misery in a country where many residents were already mired in poverty before some of the country's worst flooding in 80 years struck.
The prices of basic items such as tomatoes, onions, potatoes and squash have in some cases quadrupled in recent days, putting them out of reach for many Pakistanis.
At least 1.4 million acres of crops were destroyed in Punjab, the breadbasket of Pakistan, according to the United Nations.
Crops destroyed
Many more crops were devastated in the northwest, where residents were still trying to recover from intense battles between the Taliban and the army last year.
At least 4 million people will need food assistance across Pakistan for the next three months at a cost of nearly $100 million.
Farmers have returned to find their fields and crops destroyed.
"I had 200 kilos of corn at my home which the flood took away with it," said Dil Aram Khan, a farmer from Pirpai in Nowshera District.
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"All of our wealth is destroyed along with our wheat."
An official in Pakistan's northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa said maize, rice, sugarcane and vegetable crops were the most affected.
Another farmer said he used to hand any excess produce to the poor.
"Now the situation is this that we ourselves are waiting for charity," Iltaf Hussain Kakar said.
The desperate situation, however, was not deterring Pakistanis from undertaking the Muslim fast in the blessed month of Ramadan.
"We will fast but we don't know how will we break the fast, whether we will find any food or not. Only Allah knows," Nusrat Shah, a displaced Pakistani in Sukkur, told the Reuters news agency.
Fakhar Zaman, a businessman in Swat Valley, said: "You know the people of Swat, they would never skip fasting."
PHOTO CAPTION
Pakistan army soldiers distribute food relief among flood survivors in Sukkar, Pakistan on Tuesday, Aug. 10, 2010.
Al-Jazeera
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