ISLAMABAD: Pakistan said on Tuesday India was continuing to block its humanitarian assistance to Sri Lanka, where the confirmed death toll from Cyclone Ditwah’s floods and landslides has risen to 410, with more than 330 people still missing, according to Sri Lankan authorities.
Sri Lanka witnessed deadly flooding and landslides toward the end of November, damaging roads, fields and more than 600 houses.
Pakistan offered condolences to the families of the dead and pledged relief support, but officials said New Delhi had delayed granting airspace access amid continuing tensions between the two nuclear-armed neighbors, who fought a brief but intense military conflict in May.
“India continues to block humanitarian assistance from Pakistan to Sri Lanka,” the foreign office said in a social media post. “The special aircraft carrying Pakistan’s humanitarian assistance to Sri Lanka continues to face delay for over 60 hours now awaiting flight clearance from India.”
“The partial flight clearance issued by India last night, after 48 hours, was operationally impractical: time-bound for just a few hours and without validity for the return flight, severely hindering this urgent relief Mission for the brotherly people of Sri Lanka,” it added.
Both India and Pakistan have kept restrictions on each other’s airspace since the four-day standoff earlier this year that ended with a US-brokered ceasefire.
Speaking at a meeting with officials on Tuesday, Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake described the disaster as the worst to strike the country in recent history, saying it remained impossible to determine the full scale of casualties.
He warned that the death toll was likely far higher than current figures.
Meanwhile, the Pakistan navy has been participating in rescue operations in Sri Lanka, with an official statement a day earlier saying it had evacuated a Sri Lankan family stranded on a rooftop for five days and moved them to safety.
Pakistan and Sri Lanka share friendly ties, cooperating in trade, defense, education, culture and sports, particularly cricket.
Pakistan has also been reeling from floods this year that killed more than 1,000 people and affected around 3.6 million across the most vulnerable country to climate change, where scientists say rising temperatures are making South Asian monsoon rains heavier and more erratic.
With input from AP
