UN chief appeals for Pakistan flood aid

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged the world to speed up assistance to flood-ravaged Pakistan yesterday as the 20 million people made homeless grew increasingly desperate, and new torrents inundated villages.

Survivors fought over food being handed out from a relief vehicle close to the town of Sukkur in hard-hit Sindh province, ripping at each other’s clothes and causing such chaos that the distribution had to be abandoned, according to an Associated Press reporter at the scene.

“The impatience of the people has deprived us of the little food that had come,” said Shaukat Ali, a flood victim waiting for food.