WATCH: Song highlighting Pakistan’s flood victims’ plight creates buzz

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Screengrab of a sequence from the songs video showing a flood affectee seated on a charpoy with his children. — Twitter/@ForeignOfficePk
Screengrab of a sequence from the song's video showing a flood affectee seated on a charpoy with his children. — Twitter/@ForeignOfficePk

Ahead of the Conference on Climate Resilient Pakistan in Geneva, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Sunday launched a song 'Aao Hum Kucch Aisa Karein' to bring the trauma of flood victims before the world and spark the spirit of giving among people.

The track, according to the Foreign Office spokesperson, was launched given the start of the conference from tomorrow (Monday) onward in Geneva, Switzerland.

Shakeel Asghar Malik, an officer of Foreign Service of Pakistan, is the writer, composer and singer of the musical number. While its musical score has been designed and recorded under the supervision of veteran music maestro Mujahid Hussain.

"As Conference on Climate Resilient [Pakistan] gets underway in #Geneva tomorrow, a song titled "Aao Hum Kucch Aisa Karein" captioned in English as "Acts of Humanity" has been launched," a tweet by the Foreign Office read.

Titled in English as Acts of Humanity, the track has been produced as a dedication towards the affectees of the catastrophic floods which impacted the country's 33 million people with loss of human lives, livestock, agriculture, and infrastructure in the process.

The number appeals to the moral imperative of helping the flood-stricken people who have been living a challenging life amid the difficulties they have been confronted with since the calamity struck their lives.

Pakistan and the United Nations are organising a major conference in Geneva from Monday to help mobilise international support for Pakistan's people and its government, so they can recover more effectively from the devastations caused by flooding in the country last summer.

Record monsoon rains and melting glaciers in September 2022 displaced some 8 million people and killed at least 1,700 in a catastrophe blamed on climate change.

Most of the waters have now receded but the reconstruction work, estimated at around $16.3 billion, to rebuild millions of homes and thousands of kilometres of roads and railway is just beginning and millions more people may slide into poverty.

Islamabad, whose delegation is led by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, will present a recovery "framework" at the summit where United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and French President Emmanuel Macron are also due to speak.

Guterres, who visited Pakistan in September, has previously described the destruction in the country as "climate carnage".

"This is a pivotal moment for the global community to stand with Pakistan and to commit to a resilient and inclusive recovery from these devastating floods," said Knut Ostby, United Nations Development Programme's Pakistan Representative.

Additional funding is crucial to Pakistan amid growing concerns about its ability to pay for imports such as energy and food and to meet sovereign debt obligations abroad.

However, it is far from clear where the reconstruction money will come from, especially given the difficulties raising funds for the emergency humanitarian phase of the response which is around half funded, according to UN data.


— Additional input from Reuters