Merlin is increasingly concerned about the health of over 850,000 people have lost their homes as a result of conflict taking place in Pakistan’s SWAT and FATA regions.
As fighting intensified over the weekend, an additional 300,000 people fled to the safety of surrounding areas either staying with family and friends or joining over-crowded camps.
With limited health care, shelter, food, sanitation and clean water available, people are increasingly at risk of communicable diseases such as acute watery diarrhoea, malaria and respiratory infections. The rapidly approaching monsoon season will only add to this misery.
Maria Luiza Galer, Merlin’s Country Director in Pakistan, commented:
"People are living in hot, cramped conditions with limited water and food. They just keep arriving, adding to the already over-crowded camps and exhausted host communities. As fighting continues to escalate and more people are displaced, it is a race against time to prevent an outbreak."
The influx of people is the second wave of displacement in the area and follows on from August last year, when fighting displaced 566,000 people.
Over the weekend Merlin added to its network of four clinics and three mobile teams, setting up four clinics in newly opened camps, and two additional mobile clinics, bringing vital health care to almost 180,000 people living in camps and with host families.
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