Charity aid piles pressure on Pakistan as 1,500 die in floods

ISLAMIST charities, some with suspected ties to militants, have stepped in to provide aid for Pakistanis hit by the worst flooding in memory, piling pressure on a government criticised for its response to the disaster that has so far killed more than 1,500 people.

The floods that ravaged the northwest and displaced more than a million people are testing an administration heavily dependent on foreign aid and which has a poor record in crisis management - whether fighting Taliban insurgents or easing chronic power cuts.

Islamist charities believed to have ties with militants may gain support if their relief efforts pay off, as they did after a 2005 earthquake in Kashmir killed 75,000 people.

"We have lost everything. We only managed to save our lives. Nobody has come to us," said Mihrajuddin Khan, a school teacher in Swat Valley. "We are being treated like orphans, animals."

Rescuers are struggling to distribute relief to tens of thousands of people trapped in submerged areas where destroyed roads and bridges make access difficult.

Many in the path of the floods scrambled to save their livestock. In one town, there were more than 100 bloated buffalo carcasses, raising the spectre of disease.

Islamabad may look to Western countries, who want it to do more to tackle Pakistan-based militants who attack Nato forces in Afghanistan, for financial support to ease the crisis.

The US embassy announced $10 million in immediate humanitarian aid, with more to be earmarked as necessary. The European Union will donate €30 million.

Salman Shahid, spokesman for the Falah-i-Insaniat Foundation (Foundation for the Welfare of Humanity), said the Islamist group had set up 13 relief and six medical camps, and a dozen ambulances were providing emergency treatment. Several other Islamist groups are also helping out with the relief effort.

Falah-i-Insaniat is believed to have ties to Jamaat-ud-Dawa charity, which the UN Security Council banned last December for its alleged links with Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the group blamed for the 2008 attack on the Indian city of Mumbai.

"We're very much there. We're the only group that is providing cooked food to trapped people and those laying on the roadside," Mr Shahid said. "Our volunteers are evacuating people."

Some said the Islamists' camps had set a dangerous precedent.

"It is very likely they will exploit the governance vacuum, in the wake of this tragedy, to fuel their own recruitment," said newspaper columnist Huma Yusuf.

Authorities are expecting the death toll to rise, as more of the heavy monsoon rains lashing the area for the past week are forecast. Pakistan's National Disaster Management Authority said more than 29,500 houses were damaged and a key trade highway to China was blocked by flooding.

"The entire infrastructure has been destroyed," said Adnan Khan, of the provincial Disaster Management Authority in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.

The government's failure to help victims has reinforced the view Pakistan's civilian authorities are ineffective, leaving the military to act at troubled times.

Farmer Ghulam Hussain said: "You can imagine how much they're concerned about us when the president leaves for London [for a state visit], even though people are dying and hundreds of thousands are homeless."