Pakistan, UN appeals for more quake aid
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged a world conference of donors in Islamabad to dig deeper, warning that a second calamity threatened as winter closed in on the mountainous quake zone.
"The pitiless Himalayan winter is almost upon us and growing more and more severe every week," Annan told delegates from about 50 donor countries gathered in response to the appeal for $5.2 billion in recovery aid and longer-term reconstruction help.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel. "We must sustain our efforts to keep people as healthy and as strong as possible until we can rebuild."
Pakistan's Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said an international donors' conference yesterday had pledged roughly 5.8 billion dollars for quake assistance, more than the country said it needed.
"The rough total we have as of now is 5.8 billion dollars," Aziz said, wrapping up the conference of about 70 countries, international financial agencies and aid groups.
Pakistan had said it needed 5.2 billion dollars for reconstruction and ongoing relief after the October 8 quake that killed more than 73,000 people and made about three million homeless just before the onset of winter.
The World Bank and the Asian Development Bank pledged one billion dollars each, mostly in the form of loans. The Islamic Development Bank said it would increase its assistance from 250.6 million dollars to 501.6 million dollars.
The single biggest donor country was the United States, which pledged 510 million dollars, including 156 million dollars already given. Pakistan is a key ally in the US "war on terror".
Saudi Arabia pledged a total of 391 million dollars, while Germany said it would contribute 111.6 million dollars.
The October 8 quake killed more than 73,000 people in Pakistan, left 500,000 homeless and affected 3.3 million, many living in remote Himalayan mountains, but the appeals for aid have only raised fractions of the sums targeted.
"They say a full generation has been lost," President Pervez Musharraf told the delegates, referring to how the quake ruined schools and entombed whole classrooms of children. About 17,000 children were killed in their schools, according to UN estimates.
The Asian Development Bank was first on Saturday to announce its response to the appeals for more money, pledging $1 billion in financial aid, mostly in soft loans, though the European Union had already signalled its willingness to give more on Friday. European Commissioner for External Relations and European Neighbourhood Policy, Benita Ferrero-Waldner, told Reuters in Islamabad the EU was to pledge $112 million in addition to about $200 million pledged by the member countries individually.
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