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The toll in Pakistan's devastating floods rose to 1,752 till now.

The floods for the past six weeks have washed away almost everything in its path. Mud and land slides have swept away over 7,000 miles of roads, bridges, schools, hospitals, electricity poles, and contaminated water and food supplies. Many parts of Pakistan are cut off, hampering and frustrating relief efforts. It is the worst flooding in 80 years. A region the size of England has been flooded.

"According to new estimates following the most recent flooding in Sindh... at least 10 million people are currently without shelter," said Maurizio Giuliano, spokesman in Pakistan for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

"And this does not include those who already received emergency shelter supplies and those housed in schools," Giuliano told.

MERCY Malaysia Seeks More Funding to Assist Pakistan Flood Victims



MERCY Malaysia's local project assistant Zahid Tanoli Bashir (second from right) and volunteer doctor Dr Jitendra Kumar treating patients at the Nowshera static clinic

30 August 2010 - MERCY Malaysia is seeking more funding to assist Pakistan flood victims in response to the Pakistan floods that have devastated millions of lives in the past one month. MERCY Malaysia President said the money is needed to help provide emergency medical relief to flood victims in the southern parts of Pakistan that were affected by the flooding.

“We plan to go further down south to set up more mobile and static clinics since the need for medical attention is still widely needed but at the moment the funds are “trickling into” our Pakistan Relief Fund and it puts a constraint on the scale of our relief work in Pakistan” said MERCY Malaysia President, Dato’ Dr Ahmad Faizal Perdaus.

“I urge members of the public, corporations, foundations and organisations to come forward and help to alleviate the suffering of the people in Pakistan caused by the floods by providing financial assistance through our Pakistan Relief Fund,” said Dato’ Dr Ahmad Faizal.

"The MERCY Malaysia team in Pakistan is actively involved on the ground since they arrived on 4 August. To date, we have sent three teams to Pakistan and are currently working at two static clinics in the Nowshera and Charsadda districts. Each static clinic also runs a mobile clinic; we have served over 6,000 patients through our 4 clinics, and we expect the numbers will rise as more people are displaced by the flood,” said Dato’ Dr Ahmad Faizal Perdaus.

“Both our mobile and static clinics received overwhelming number of patients that seek medical attention since MERCY Malaysia gained the trust of the local communities there,” he said.

"We at the MERCY Malaysia headquarters received reports from our staff in Pakistan that there is a high number of cases relating to conjunctivitis, dehydration and diarrhoea as there is a shortage of clean and safe water to drink and use,” he added.

“Apart from providing medical relief to the affected communities, MERCY Malaysia is also distributing hygiene kits and conducting sessions for the flood survivors to educate them on cleanliness and hygiene. We assisted 200 families in Pabbi, Nowshera, and hygiene promotion sessions were done together with local students from the Peshawar Medical College. This is important to mitigate the spread of communicable diseases -like diarrhoea and scabies- that occur during floods.”

“Since the Government of Pakistan has announced that the emergency phase is until 30 September 2010, MERCY Malaysia will continue to provide emergency medical relief to as much affected communities as we can and we hope to continue provide our services in the recovery phase after the said date, if our funding permits,” said Dato’ Dr Ahmad Faizal.

Concerned individuals and organisations can donate to MERCY Malaysia’s Pakistan Relief Fund through:

1. The following bank accounts:

MAYBANK (account name: MERCY HUMANITARIAN FUND, account number: 5621-7950-4126,

ABA Swift Code: MBBEMYKLA), or

CIMB Bank (account name: MERCY Malaysia, account number: 1424-000-6561053,

ABA Swift Code: CIBBMYKL), or

Internet Banking

- CIMBClicks (via CIMB Cares), or

- Maybank2u (via registered biller), or

- AmOnline (via registered biller), or

- EON Bank (via registered biller).

2. Donations via cheque are payable to MERCY MALAYSIA

3. To donate online, please visit www.mercy.org.my

(Kindly state, “Pakistan Relief Fund” at the back of the cheque, in the bank-in slip or at the reference column if transaction is via internet banking).

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About MERCY Malaysia

MERCY Malaysia is a non‐profit organisation focusing on providing medical relief, sustainable health-related development and risk reduction activities for vulnerable communities in both crisis and non-crisis situations. MERCY Malaysia recognises the value of working with partners and volunteers as well as providing opportunities for individuals to serve with professionalism. We uphold the Code of Conduct for the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and NGOs in Disaster Relief and hold ourselves accountable to our donors and beneficiaries. As a non‐profit organisation, MERCY Malaysia relies solely on funding and donations from organisations and generous individuals to continue our services to provide humanitarian assistance to our beneficiaries.

Important Note to Media: Usage of Wordmark MERCY Malaysia

In order to avoid confusion with other organisation(s) that uses “Mercy” as the organisation’s name or part of the organisation’s name, please take note that in addressing the name of our organisation, the wordmark for MERCY Malaysia is with capitalised “MERCY”, followed by the word “Malaysia”. When describing the organisation, the term “MERCY Malaysia” must always be used in full, and should not be partially referred to as “MERCY”, or “Mercy”. Thank you for your cooperation.

For further information, kindly contact:

Mas Elati Samani, Head of Communications and Strategic Engagement,

MERCY Malaysia

Level 2, Podium Block, City Point, Kompleks Dayabumi,

Jalan Sultan Hishamuddin, 50050 KL.

T: 6-03-2273 3999, F: 6-03-2272 3812, E: mas@mercy.org.my W: www.mercy.org.my