Angelina Jolie is going to visit flood-damaged Pakistan, according to a statement released Monday by the International Rescue Committee (IRC). The trip is meant to draw attention to the country’s growing humanitarian crisis.
Floods caused by record monsoon rains and melting glaciers in the northern mountain areas of Pakistan have covered a third of the country’s land, killing more than 1,500 people and affecting an estimated 33 million more by destroying homes, roads, railroads, livestock, and crops.
Authorities have said that it could take up to six months for the floodwaters to go down in the worst-affected parts of the country, and fears are growing about diseases like cholera and dengue that can spread through water.
Because of the rain, 3.4 million children need “immediate, life-saving support.” This means that they are at risk of getting water-borne diseases like dengue fever and malaria.
” Jolie is going to see the situation for herself and learn more about it. “She also wants to hear directly from the people who are suffering about their needs and what can be done to prevent such suffering in the future,” the statement said.
It said that she will visit the IRC’s relief efforts and local groups that are helping displaced people. It’s not clear if Jolie has arrived in Pakistan yet or how long her trip is expected to last.
Pakistan’s minister for climate change, Sherry Rehman, called the situation “the worst humanitarian disaster of this decade” and asked the rest of the world to help immediately by sending “food, tents, and medicine.”
“There is an outbreak of dengue in Karachi, where hundreds of thousands of people are going to the government and private hospitals every day. This year, there are 50% more cases of dengue than last year. There are 584,246 people living in camps across the country. “If the health crisis isn’t fixed, it could cause a lot of trouble,” said Rehman last week.
Up to 70% of the country’s staple crops, such as rice and maize, have been destroyed. This means that the country could soon run out of food. Total economic damage is now thought to be more than $30 billion, which is three times what the government thought at first.
Both the Pakistani government and the Secretary General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, blamed global climate change for making extreme weather worse, calling it “monsoon on steroids.”
In a statement, the IRC said that “Jolie will see for herself how countries like Pakistan are paying the most for a crisis they didn’t cause.”
“The IRC hopes that her visit will shed light on this issue and get the international community, especially the countries that put out the most carbon, to act quickly and help the countries that are suffering the most from the climate crisis,” the organisation said.
The IRC said that Jolie had been to the country before, in 2005 and 2010, after natural disasters.
