LONDON (Reuters) - Relief groups in Pakistan will be forced to stop or cut back supplies of aid to more than one million people fleeing a military offensive in the northern Swat valley unless the worst funding crisis in a decade is resolved.
Nine aid agencies said on Thursday they faced a shortfall in excess of 26 million pounds, which was needed to provide food, medicine, tents and clothes to families uprooted by Pakistan's campaign to expel Taliban militants from Swat.
About 2.5 million people have been displaced by the fighting in Swat and other parts of the northwest, making Pakistan's one of the biggest internal displacements in the world.
Oxfam, which is 4 million pounds short of cash, said it would have to close an operation to assist 360,000 people if more money did not arrive by July.
"This is the worst funding crisis we've faced in over a decade for a major humanitarian emergency," Jane Cocking, Oxfam's Humanitarian Director, said in a joint statement.
The United Nations has appealed for $543 million (331 million pounds), but has received only $138 million -- a quarter of that so far.
The joint statement said besides little money going into the U.N. appeal, even less was being dispersed to aid groups on the ground from the appeal.
The problem has prompted Britain's Department for International Development to say it would give a direct cash injection to the relief agencies.
Aid workers are worried that the onset of monsoon rains in July will escalate the risk of malaria, water contamination and diarrhoea for internal refugees sheltering in camps and with host families.
"The only reason we haven't faced a massive humanitarian meltdown is the generosity of families and communities of modest means who've looked after the vast majority of those who've fled the fighting," said Carolyn Miller, Chief Executive of Merlin.
"The world's richest nations need to dig much deeper into their pockets to help," she said in the statement.
Pakistan's military launched the offensive against the Taliban last month after militants took advantage of a peace pact to take control of new areas in the region.
There are expectations the army will now turn its attention to other Taliban strongholds, like the South Waziristan tribal region bordering Afghanistan, once Swat has been dealt with.
The United Nations' humanitarian chief John Holmes said on Tuesday that 500,000 more people could be displaced if Pakistan's army mounted a big operation in Waziristan.
(Editing by Charles Dick)
