By Mayabhushan Nagvenkar

Panaji, Aug 26 (IANS): As help pours in for Pakistan's flood-affected areas, a small group of Pakistanis of Goan origin is networking to bring hope to some 20 million people affected by the calamity.

Deborah Santamaria's Goinkars Own Academy (GOA) operating from Karachi has been sending appeals to the Goan diaspora across the world, seeking assistance desperately. Around 1,600 people have been killed in the floods in Pakistan.

GOA has also set up a relief camp at St.Anthony's church in Karachi, Pakistan, to pitch in physically with the relief work.

"Our group has set up a relief camp at our parish St Anthony's Church - Karachi and at this moment we are focusing on putting together family packs (containing essential items) which will be transported to the (flood) affected areas," Deborah, who traces her roots to Goa, told IANS on e-mail.

She is part of a 25,000-strong community of Goans who had settled in Pakistan, several of them near Karachi, in the pre-partition days.

"We have also got in touch with the parish priests in the affected areas and have asked them to send in their requests for items that they would require for relief work," she said, adding that GOA's flood relief work had first started in the Sindh and Balochistan provinces of Pakistan.

Describing the floods since July, which have devastated areas of Sindh, south Punjab and Balochistan, as "worse than the tsunami", Deborah said the lives and hope of millions of people were destroyed overnight.

"Flood water has damaged roads and washed away bridges, effectively cutting off the worst affected areas from the rest of the country. Crops have been washed away, causing severe food scarcity," she said.

"Key humanitarian needs for the displaced population are food and safe drinking water. The biggest threat is the outbreak of water-borne diseases such as diarrhoea and cholera, especially deadly to children," she added.

Deborah's appeal to the liberally scattered Goan diaspora, via the web, across the world has not fallen on deaf years. "We've received a terrific response from the Goan community across the world, especially those settled in Canada," she said.

"Not just Goans. People from every walk of life have come forward to help the devastated flood victims of our country," she said.

Deborah further said this was not the first time that the community had come together to lend a helping hand in the face of a calamity in Pakistan.

"In 2005, when the earthquake struck our country we got together and set up relief camps at the various parishes of the archdiocese. The stuff we collected was then transported to the affected areas.

"Our country and its people in the affected area are going through crisis and the little that we are doing is just a drop in the ocean," she said.

The July floods in Pakistan left the nation shell-shocked and have been described as one of the most devastating tragedy to have occurred in the region. The global community is already pitching in with aid worth millions of dollars to assist the relief work.