UN Appeals for $5.3m for Flood-Ravaged Tajikistan

(HN, May 22, 2010) The United Nations is appealing for $ 5.3 million to provide relief and recovery assistance to thousands of people that had been affected by the flashfloods in Kulyab and the surrounding districts in the south of Tajikistan on 7 May.Floods have hit Tajikistan for the second year-in-a-row.

About 4,500 persons had been displaced since their houses had been destroyed, their livestock killed and crops destroyed said Elisabeth Byrs of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN-OCHA).

The displaced are currently staying in tent camps. Another 16,000 persons in rural areas had lost their livelihoods and their livestock. OCHA says the hard-hit needed life-sustaining support for up to six months.

Byrs said the appeal included 26 projects proposed by United Nations agencies and partners. Tajikistan was already the poorest country of the 15 former Soviet republics, she noted.

In May 2009, two major floods destroyed four villages in Tajikistan's southern Khatlon Province, displacing about 440 families.

Comments

[Michael Bociurkiw]

Poor Tajikistan, one of my favourite countries. First a polio outbreak and now floods. The floods could exacerbate the battle to stem polio...