Manama: Pakistan’s foreign minister, has urged his fellow countrymen in Qatar to contribute, by whatever means they can, to the relief effort in Pakistan.
The floods have caused devastation on such a scale that it’s impossible for the government to provide rehabilitation for all of its victims, Shah Mahmoud Qureshi told the Pakistani community at a meeting in Doha. Assistance is urgently required, he said.
"We believe that since 1947, this [flood] has caused the biggest displacement. Pakistan’s bread basket has been affected badly. We used to have surplus wheat. Now there’s the fear of a famine. Our elderly, women and children are at great risk,” he said.
Those who do not want to donate through a government agency can do so through other means, Qatar daily The Peninsula quoted him as saying.
He pointed out that a community fundraising event for fund-relief, early last month, raised Rs10m ($116,000) in half-an-hour. A similar meeting will be held after Eid Al Fitr.
The Pakistani community in Qatar has raised another Rs10m (DH545, 500) since then, Qureshi said, adding that Pakistan is keen to boost its ties with the Gulf countries.
“Gulf countries are important for Pakistan as millions of our people live here. The Gulf treats Pakistan as an important country and part of their region and feels their pain if Pakistanis are in pain,” he said. “I admit Pakistan has not been able to take that relationship further in recent years, as we’ve been engaged with elements involved in Afghanistan including the US, Germany, Britain, Nato, and so on. We are aiming to correct that now,” the Gulf Times quoted him as saying.
According to Mohammad Asghar Afridi, Pakistan's ambassador to Doha, 85,000 Pakistanis live in Qatar, in addition to hundreds of people of Pakistani origin. Qatar has 30 Pakistani organisations, he said.
