Pakistan To Host International Donors' Mtg To Raise Aid For Displaced

ISLAMABAD (AFP)--Pakistan will host Thursday an international donors' meeting to drum up funds for around 2 million people displaced by fighting between government forces and the Taliban, a cabinet minister said.
The meeting of representatives of international donors will be chaired by Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani in Islamabad, Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira told a news conference without providing further details.
Pakistan previously announced 1 billion rupees ($12.5 million) in relief for the humanitarian crisis, but critics warn that is a fraction of the money needed for reconstruction and law enforcement to beat the Taliban.
Kaira said a total of 1.9 million people had been displaced from the northwest region of Malakand, which the government this year agreed to put under sharia law in an unsuccessful bid to end a Taliban insurgency.
The U.N. says around 1.5 million people have been displaced since May 2 during Pakistan's latest military onslaught against advancing Taliban, bringing to around 2 million the number displaced since last August.
As the conflict ploughs on with no end in sight, concerns are mounting about how to cope with the displaced, uprooted in what rights groups have called Pakistan's biggest movement of people since partition from India in 1947.
At a conference in Tokyo last month, donor countries pledged $5.28 billion for Pakistan, which U.S. special envoy Richard Holbrooke swiftly warned was "not enough" to stabilize the cash-strapped, nuclear-armed country.