The Foreign Office (FO) said on Tuesday that India was preventing humanitarian assistance from being sent to Sri Lanka by air, prompting Islamabad to send aid by sea to the south Asian island, where severe flooding and landslides triggered by Cyclone Ditwah have claimed more than 400 lives.
In a post on X, the FO said: “India continues to block humanitarian assistance from Pakistan to Sri Lanka. The special aircraft carrying Pakistan’s humanitarian assistance to Sri Lanka continues to face a delay of over 60 hours now awaiting flight clearance from India.
“The partial flight clearance issued by India last night, after 48 hours, was operationally impractical: time-bound for just a few hours and without validity for the return flight, severely hindering this urgent relief mission for the brotherly people of Sri Lanka.”
A statement issued later by the Pakistan High Commission in Sri Lanka said aircraft were awaiting clearance to fly and accused India of blocking the humanitarian relief operation through “shenanigans”.
The statement said that a “robust relief operation” was initiated on the special directives of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who had instructed the “immediate mobilisation of national resources” to support Sri Lanka during its hour of need.
It said that since Saturday, the Pakistan Army and the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) have been ready for relief operations in Sri Lanka.
“However, for more than two days, Pakistan’s emergency relief mission comprising C-130 aircraft carrying a fully equipped urban search and rescue team, field hospitals, highly trained sniffing dogs and nearly 200 tonnes of life-saving supplies have remained stranded at Noor Khan Air Base in Islamabad due to delaying tactics deployed by India in granting flight clearance to C-130 aircraft.
“India in a cunning move has granted one day diplomatic clearance at 1800 hours, on Nov 1 through its embassy in Islamabad. The clearance was valid for around six hours for Pakistan’s assisted emergency and relief aircraft to depart, which was not sufficient for an aircraft to move back and forth to Colombo.
“Earlier, Indian authorities were reportedly engaged in deliberate delaying tactics, repeatedly asking Pakistan to resubmit and re-route flight plans despite already receiving complete documentation. These procedural hurdles appear to cause further delays, undermining timely relief delivery to a disaster-struck neighbour.”
The high commission said that by delaying emergency humanitarian aid, India had disregarded universally accepted norms of humanitarian conduct.
“The behaviour is callous, politically motivated and in violation of established international humanitarian norms, UN guiding principles as well as SAARC humanitarian charter principles.”
The high commission said that India’s “continued use of procedural manoeuvres and airspace restrictions” raised serious concerns about its adherence to humanitarian obligations and its commitment to regional solidarity in times of tragedy.
“Pakistan hopes that India will take a responsible and humanitarian approach by granting immediate airspace access with doable flight operational time and will refrain from politicising a purely humanitarian mission meant for the people of Sri Lanka in times of distress.
“Having, everlasting bilateral friendship, the humanitarian operation of relief supplies carries heartfelt solidarity of the Pakistani nation with its Sri Lankan brothers and sisters. and underscores powerful message that Sri Lanka is not alone and Pakistan will stand by it always,” the statement said.
Later in the day, the FO said that 200 tonnes of humanitarian aid had been dispatched by sea due to the delay in authorising overflights.
“Pakistan has dispatched 200 tons of humanitarian assistance to Sri Lanka via sea cargo to support relief efforts following the devastating Cyclone Ditwah,” the FO wrote on X, adding that a send-off ceremony was held for the cargo, attended by Sri Lanka High Commissioner to Pakistan Admiral Ravindra C Wijegunaratne, among other officials.
“Pakistan stands in full solidarity with the people of Sri Lanka,” the post read.
The development comes a day after diplomatic sources told Dawn that Pakistan had received India’s permission to use its airspace for humanitarian aid flights to Sri Lanka to provide flood relief.
Sri Lanka President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has declared a state of emergency to deal with what he called the “most challenging natural disaster in our history”.
It should be mentioned that India and Pakistan have closed their airspaces to each other’s aircraft since tensions between them escalated in April in the wake of an attack in India-occupied Kashmir’s Pahalgam that killed 26 people and the subsequent four-day conflict. In October, Islamabad extended the airspace ban until November 24.
Sri Lanka flooding death toll hits 410
The death toll from flooding and landslides in Sri Lanka was now 410, the Disaster Management Centre said Tuesday, with another 336 people missing following a week of heavy rains.
It said over 1.5 million people were affected by the worst natural disaster to hit the country since the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004.
An official in the central town of Welimada told local reporters he expected the toll to rise, as his staff dug through the mud looking for victims buried by landslides.
In the capital Colombo, meanwhile, floodwaters were slowly subsiding on Tuesday.
The speed with which waters rose around the city surprised local residents used to seasonal flooding.
“Every year we experience minor floods, but this is something else,” delivery driver Dinusha Sanjaya told AFP.
Rains have eased across the country, but landslide alerts remain in force across most of the hardest-hit central region, officials said.
