UK lawmaker calls for Pakistan's foreign debt to be cancelled after cataclysmic floods

• Claudia Webbe voices support for Pakistan after deadly floods.
• "Pakistan should be given reparations for climate crisis caused."
• Officials say more than 33 million Pakistanis people are affected.

A lawmaker from the United Kingdom has called for Pakistan's international debt to be cancelled after cataclysmic floods boosted inflation to a 47-year-high.

In a statement on Twitter, Member of Parliament for Leicester East Claudia Webbe said that given Pakistan's current condition, the country should be provided funds to cushion the economic impact of the disaster.

"Inflation in Pakistan is at an all-time high at 27%! Pakistan’s international debt should be immediately cancelled — they should instead be given reparations for the climate crisis caused," she said.

Pakistan’s inflation measured by the consumer price index (CPI) has hit a 47-year high by accelerating to 27.3% in August 2022, the level last seen in May 1975, while still, the full impact of massive flooding on the prices of food items and other commodities is yet to come.

Rainfall 10 times heavier than usual caused Pakistan’s devastating floods, the European Space Agency has said.

Rains, described by UN chief Antonio Guterres as a “monsoon on steroids” have claimed hundreds of lives since June, unleashing powerful floods that have washed away swathes of vital crops and damaged or destroyed more than a million homes.

Officials say more than 33 million people are affected — one in every seven Pakistanis — and reconstruction work will cost more than $10 billion.

Guterres has called the floods a “climate catastrophe” and launched an appeal for $160 million in emergency funding.