Pakistanis celebrate Eid with trip home to aid countrymen

Some Pakistani expatriates will fly to their homeland during Eid Al Adha to donate food and supplies to flood victims.

DUBAI // Instead of relaxing or celebrating Eid Al Adha, some Pakistani nationals will travel to their homeland to help flood victims.

Hundreds of packages containing enough rice, flour, tea, biscuits and Eid sweets to last a family of five for a month will be handed out to victims of the flooding in Sindh Province, in the country's south.

"We have a few volunteers who work with us in the area and we have done some distribution of items after the floods first struck," said Mobisher Rabbani, a Dubai businessman and philanthropist.

"With Eid arriving now, I thought it would be good to help out those people who are still suffering from the flood damage."

Mr Rabbani had hoped to travel before Eid but the high cost of air tickets meant he will go on Monday, the second day of the festival.

"The plan is to go to Karachi first, then we can collect the supplies and head to the city of Badin where we will hand out the supplies," he said.

The floods began in mid-August after heavy monsoon rains. Hundreds of people were killed and millions left without shelter.

The floods hit at a time of strained resources after the nationwide flooding in the summer of last year.

"What we are going to do is buy the food and items in Pakistan because it is so much cheaper there than from here, and we can help more people," Mr Rabbani said.

Mr Rabbani, who founded the Rabbani Foundation, said he hoped to get support from the Pakistan Air Force to fly the supplies to the stricken areas. But he said he might have to deliver the goods by road, as it was a public holiday.

Helping him will be Farhan Ali, a Pakistani national and health and safety officer in Abu Dhabi.

"I have 15 days leave and I will definitely spend 10 days in Sindh," Mr Ali said. "This is the first time I'll be going to Sindh and I think it will really give me a good idea about what the situation is on the ground."

Last week, the UN Children's Fund (Unicef) announced extra aid of US$5.4 million (Dh19.8m) from the European Commission's humanitarian fund that will be used to fight malnutrition in Sindh and Punjab.

The cash will be used to support the screening of 630,000 children for malnutrition, and to treat 81,000 undernourished children.

It will also be used to give counselling and dietary education about children, as well as immunisation and hygiene, to 1 million caretakers of children under five years old.