ISLAMABAD: The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has expressed solidarity with Pakistan, the Saudi foreign ministry said on Saturday, after monsoon downpours and floods killed nearly 1,000 people and submerged large swathes of land across the South Asian nation.
At least 982 people, including 316 children, have died in different rain-related incidents across Pakistan since mid-June, according to the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) data issued late Friday.
More than half of these casualties are from southwestern Balochistan and southern Sindh provinces, where 234 and 339 people have died respectively amid record rains that have affected millions of people across the country.
“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs expresses the solidarity of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s solidarity with the brotherly Republic of Pakistan, due to the heavy rains, floods and torrential rains that resulted in deaths, injuries and missing persons,” the Saudi foreign ministry said on Twitter.
“The Ministry expresses the Kingdom’s sincere condolences to the families of the deceased and to the Government of Pakistan due to this painful incident, wishing the injured a speedy recovery and those missing would survive.”
Pakistan has strong political, cultural, economic and defense ties with Saudi Arabia. The kingdom is also home to more than 2.5 million Pakistani expatriates and a key source of remittances and oil supply to Islamabad.
Earlier this week, Saudi Arabia’s KSRelief sent 100 trucks that carried 950 tons of food items for flood-ravaged districts of Pakistan. The consignment, the third from the aid agency since the monsoon began, included 10,000 food packages.