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Muslim countries and organizations have pledged nearly $1bn in cash and supplies to relief efforts for flood victims in Pakistan, the head of a group of Islamic states has said.
The announcement came as rising waters inundated the city of Thatta in the southern Sindh province and threatened the nearby town of Sujawal, home to 250,000 people.
"They [Muslim countries and organizations] have shown that they are one of the largest contributors of assistance both in kind and cash," Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, head of the 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), said in Islamabad on Sunday.
The aid pledges come from OIC institutions and telethons held in Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, he said.
Ihsanoglu did not provide a breakdown of the pledges or say how much of the money would go to the Pakistani government versus non-governmental organizations.
NGOs criticized
Yousuf Raza Gilani, Pakistan's prime minister, criticized donations made to foreign NGOs rather than the Pakistani government, saying the money would be wasted.
"Eighty per cent of the aid will not come to you directly," he said on Sunday, referring to Pakistani citizens.
"It will come through their NGOs, and they will eat half of it," he said.
The Pakistani government has been criticized for not doing enough to help the 17 million people who have been significantly affected by the floods.
Flooding, which began about a month ago after exceptionally heavy monsoon rains pounded the country's northwest, has spread down the country towards the coast, inundating agricultural land and damaging or destroying more than 1.2 million homes.
An estimate 72,000 children are at risk of dying from malnutrition if more immediate aid is not providing the worst-hit areas.
'No shelter'
More than 1,500 people have been killed and eight million others are in need of emergency assistance across the country.
"We don't have any form of shelter and are desperate for food and water, not to mention food, tents or any other facility," Mohammed Usman, a laborer who fled the city of Sujawal several days ago said.
Authorities in Sujawal have been trying to limit flood damage, but water levels have already risen up to 1.5 meters in the centre of the town and three meters in surrounding villages, Anwarul Haq, the senior official in Sujawal, said.
Thatta, a historic city of about 350,000 and the base of operations for local authorities, is also threatened, and many of its residents have already fled to higher ground.
"We are trying ... at three different points to stop the water flow toward Thatta," Hadi Baksh, a disaster management official in Sindh, said.
PHOTO CAPTION
Pakistani children who survived floods with their families live in a camp setup for displaced people in Nowshera, Pakistan on Sunday, Aug. 29, 2010.
Al-Jazeera
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