GENEVA: The devastating floods in Pakistan will place huge strains on efforts to get food into neighboring Afghanistan to relieve its catastrophic humanitarian crisis, the United Nations warned on Friday.
The UN's World Food Programme said much of the food aid transited through Pakistan by road -- a network that has been severely affected by the worst floods in the country's history.
"We're focused absolutely on the needs of the people in Pakistan right now but the ramifications of what we're experiencing here go wider," WFP's Pakistan country director Chris Kaye said.
"We're becoming very, very concerned about the overall food security, not only in Pakistan in the immediate and medium term, but also for what it's going to imply for the operations in Afghanistan.
"Pakistan provides a vital supply route into Afghanistan," he said. Large amounts of its food enter via the port of Karachi.
"With roads that have been washed away, that presents us with a major logistical challenge," Kaye told reporters in Geneva, via video-link from Dubai.
"WFP has procured over 320,000 metric tonnes in the past year to support operations in Afghanistan. The floods in Pakistan are going to put a huge dent in that capability."
He said there was a "major problem" in restoring agricultural production in Pakistan to feed its own people and continue supplying food to Afghanistan.
A further issue was that the wheat harvest was being stored in flooded areas of Pakistan, and "a large proportion of the wheat has been washed away".
He said the food security situation in Pakistan was "grave" even before the floods, with 43 percent of people food insecure and the country ranking at 92 out of 116 on the Global Hunger Index.
Monsoon rains have submerged a third of Pakistan, claiming more than a thousand lives since June and unleashing powerful floods that have washed away swathes of vital crops and damaged or destroyed more than a million homes.
Officials have blamed climate change, which is increasing the frequency and intensity of extreme weather around the world.
Afghanistan's 38 million people face a desperate humanitarian crisis -- aggravated after billions of dollars in assets were frozen and foreign aid dried up when the Taliban took over a year ago.
Pakistan floods threaten Afghanistan food supply — UN
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Pakistan floods threaten Afghanistan food supply — UN
- UN's World Food Programme said much of the food aid transited to Afghanistan through Pakistan by road
- Monsoon rains have submerged a third of Pakistan washed away swathes of vital crops and damaged infrastructure
Bangladesh-Pakistan flights resume after 14 years
- National carrier Biman Bangladesh Airlines departed for Pakistan’s Karachi city with 150 passengers
- Since 2012, travelers between both nations have used connecting flights to reach their destinations
DHAKA, Bangladesh: Direct flights between Bangladesh and Pakistan resumed on Thursday after more than a decade, as ties warm between the two nations that have long had an uneasy relationship.
Bangladesh and Pakistan — geographically divided by about 1,500 kilometers (930 miles) of Indian territory — were once one nation. They split after a bitter war in 1971.
Since 2012, travelers between Bangladesh and Pakistan had to use connecting flights through Gulf hubs such as Dubai and Doha.
On Thursday national carrier Biman Bangladesh Airlines departed for the Pakistani city of Karachi, the first regular flight since 2012.
Mohammad Shahid, one of 150 Karachi-bound passengers on board, said he was happy to be able to travel more frequently than before, when he could only make the journey once every two or three years.
“We had been waiting for such an opportunity because we travel continuously,” he told AFP in Dhaka.
“There are so many people waiting in Pakistan to come here, and some waiting here to go there.”
Direct flights will now operate twice weekly.
Biman said in a statement that their resumption would “play a significant role in promoting trade and commerce, expanding educational exchanges, and fostering cultural ties between the two countries.”
Ties with fellow Muslim-majority nation Pakistan have warmed since a student-led revolt in Bangladesh overthrew Sheikh Hasina in 2024, ending her autocratic 15-year rule.
Over the same period, relations between Bangladesh and Hasina’s old ally India have turned frosty.
Cargo ships resumed sailing from Karachi to Bangladesh’s key port of Chittagong in November 2024.
Trade has risen since then and cultural ties have grown, with popular Pakistani singers performing in Dhaka, while Bangladeshi patients have traveled to Pakistan for medical care.
