Rehan Khan / EPA

An aerial view of flooded areas in Pangrio, Sindh province, Pakistan, on Friday. The southern province of Sindh has been hit hard by the floods caused by unusually heavy monsoon rains.

Amna Nawaz, NBC News Producer

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – After the devastating 2005 earthquake that struck Pakistan and killed 80,000, Sami Malik, a national officer for UNICEF here, spent months on the relief efforts. “I used to pray I would never again see that kind of suffering in my life.”

Malik has just returned from a four-day, fact-finding mission to Pakistan’s southern province of Sindh, where torrential downpours have caused widespread flooding, and a new humanitarian crisis is emerging.

Malik, a nine-year veteran of the organization, who was also part of their relief efforts during last year’s unprecedented floods, struggles to describe what he has seen.

“One falls short of words,” he said. “Misery is the only word that comes to mind.”

Last year’s floods caught international attention because of the scale of the disaster.

Heavy rains in the north overwhelmed the water channels, forcing torrents of water south. The fast-moving floods breached surrounding banks, spilling over into villages, eventually leaving an estimated 20 percent of the country underwater.

This year’s floods have gradually grown to emergency level due to persistent, torrential downpours concentrated in the south. Of 23 districts in the Sindh Province, 22 have been affected.

According to a recently released United Nations report, an estimated 5.4 million people have been affected so far and 1.1 million homes have been destroyed. Over 300,000 individuals are currently living in relief sites, scattered around the region, and more than 250 people have died.

Malik says many Pakistanis are experiencing a “double trauma.”

“For many people in the worst-affected districts, it’s a double hit,” he said. “They had not yet recovered from last year’s floods, when this year’s hit.”

Str / AFP - Getty Images

Pakistani villagers evacuate household items in a flooded area of Umerkot on Friday.

'Just stranded'
Relief workers say the nature of this year’s flooding also complicates the relief response. The reaction from villagers in this region – most of whom already live well below the poverty line – lacked the panic they felt with last year’s fast-moving floods. They’ve been reluctant to leave their homes and few belongings behind, and when they do decide to move, they go only short distances to higher-ground – not necessarily to larger relief camps.

“It becomes challenging to reach people when you have 100 or 150 people clustering in thousands of areas, as opposed to thousands of people in a single refugee camp,” said Kristen Elsby, Chief of Advocacy and Communication for UNICEF Pakistan.

Malik described one such group he came across in the Mirpur Khas district.

“There were about 100 people, all just sitting outside on an elevated section of ground,” he said. “They said they’d been out of their homes for nearly a month. Their animals had all drowned. They had only two cots they’d propped together to form a makeshift hut.  And they were just stranded.”

Children, among the most vulnerable in any natural disaster, can be disproportionately affected in floods. The population structure in Pakistan – 35 percent of the population is under 14 years old according to the CIA Factbook – means children are among the most adversely affected. Those lacking clean, drinkable water supplies can be tempted to drink the water that surrounds them instead, exposing them to deadly waterborne diseases.

“We saw unbelievable scenes,” Malik recalled from his field visit. “Waist-deep water, as far as the eye could see. And to my horror, children were swimming in that water, swallowing that water, not realizing what it can do to them.”

Asif Hassan / AFP - Getty Images

A Pakistani flood affected A Pakistani child cries beside a makeshift tent on the high ground of flooded area of Jhudo on Friday.

Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Syed Yousef Raza Gilani have both made appeals for aid from the international community. Iran responded with a $100 million dollar pledge. Japan and China have promised relief goods and donations. The United States has paid for food packages for 23,000 families, and is working with local partners to distribute tents, clean water, and additional supplies.

Gilani today cancelled his trip to the U.S. where he was scheduled to address the United Nations General Assembly, so he could stay behind to visit flood-affected areas and oversee the relief response.

For UNICEF Pakistan, the most urgent need is to reach children with clean water, food, and medicine. The organization had already begun responding to the disaster while still gathering data in the field, and now hopes to scale up their response.

Malik says it’s difficult not to feel “increasingly hopeless,” about the situation.

“The lifestyle of these people, even under normal circumstances, is not at all enviable,” said Malik. “They’re already living in the margins of the margins. When such a calamity hits, you can’t imagine how their situation worsens.”

Veteran journalist Fakhar Rehman reports from Pakistan's tribal areas. He believes many people in his homeland saw the U.S. reaction to 9/11 as an attack on Islam.

By Fakhar Rehman, NBC News

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — When I turned on my television at home on September 11, 2001, I was stunned to see passenger planes hitting symbols of America's financial and military strength.

My journalistic instincts kicked in and I contacted Sohail Shaheen, the Taliban Embassy spokesman in Islamabad. "Are you watching TV?" I asked him. His reply was, "No." I explained the breaking news that was unfolding on-air. He denied the Taliban were involved. I told him to get ready — the whole world would soon be focusing on Afghanistan. At the time, I did not realize that the focus would eventually turn to my own country of Pakistan.

Thousands pay respects to 9/11 victims

Covering the "War on Terror" as a Pakistani journalist over the last decade, I've found myself in many unexpected situations. One week after the U.S. invaded Afghanistan, I received a call from the Taliban to pick up my visa from their Embassy in Islamabad. Once there, I was told they were taking me to Jalalabad — immediately. I called my family, got on the bus with the Taliban and spent the next three days wearing the same clothes while interviewing Taliban members and reporting from Afghanistan. Thank God, I returned home safely.

As a Muslim, the 9/11 attacks pushed me to probe my own religion and try to offer assessments in the debate on Islam and extremism. I've always believed that no religion supports killing. Extremism has nothing to do with any religion; it's a reaction, an outburst of feelings for a person who passes through certain difficulties and sees no other way. But, like many Pakistanis and others around the world, I did consider the U.S. action after 9/11 to be too big. President George W. Bush's decision to call it a "crusade" led to a great divide in the Muslim world. The evil men who perpetrated the 9/11 attacks could then be called "warriors" in this "crusade," and not "criminals," as they should have been. People here saw the U.S. reaction as an attack on Islam.

Islamists protest in Pakistan on 9/11 anniversary

Over the last 10 years, I've watched Pakistan became a divided nation. Everyone now has to define himself by where he falls on the line of extremist, liberal, or moderate. The country now looks like a war zone, with checkpoints and security barriers in all the main cities. Suicide attacks were an unknown phenomenon here — the first in years was the assassination attempt on President Pervez Musharraf in December 2003. Now they happen all the time.

Thousands of people have been killed here, children have been orphaned and entire families have been uprooted — insecurity has become the dominant feeling in the last 10 years. No-go zones, checkpoints, anti-terror courts — these are all everyday things in Pakistanis' lives. They never were before 9/11.

'This will be a long war'
There has been a loss of personal freedom. Never ever before were journalists regarded with suspicion but now I am regularly searched. My right to move and report freely has been curtailed but I see this profession as a way to continue fighting for those rights for all.

The U.S. was right to punish the 9/11 perpetrators but it laid the wrong foundation for its "crusade." As a result, Pakistani society has become more segmented, pushing Islamist and liberal political parties further apart. The Pakistan Army has to fight terrorists while trying to convince the masses it's not fighting a war against Islamists.

'American response was more deadly than 9/11' 

Ten years ago I met a Taliban fighter on that trip to Jalalabad and I asked him how they would face a war against America. "Our fighters have already moved into the mountains," he said. "This will be a long war and we are ready."

The fight is still on. But despite the changes I've seen in my own country, I still believe Pakistan will emerge a strong and stable nation.

DAVID GRAY / Reuters

A Pakistan national flag flies alongside a Chinese national flag in front of the portrait of Chairman Mao Zedong on Beijing's Tiananmen Square during Pakistan Prime Minister Gilani's visit to China.

By Ian Williams, NBC News Correspondent

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – At breakfast at my hotel I was having trouble with the cornflake dispenser. It was one of those tall cylindrical containers with a lever at the bottom that needed to be turned for the cornflakes to tumble out, only the lever was stuck. I gave up in frustration and almost walked into a young woman who'd been observing my dismal efforts.

"Dui Bu Qui," (“excuse me”), she said, addressing me in Mandarin, before simply opening the top of the container and ladling out her cornflakes.

She then returned to a table of what looked to me like Chinese businessmen. She was by far the smartest-dressed at the table, the translator I assumed, while the men – ruddy faced, a bit rough around the edges, and looking a little uncomfortable in dark suits and ties – were fairly typical of the traders or small town entrepreneurs I'm more familiar with on trips to provincial China.

I looked further around the restaurant. There were several more tables of what looked to me like Chinese businessmen, while at the back, more discretely seated, was a more polished group, Chinese diplomats or bankers perhaps, pouring over some documents. (Possibly the latest photos of the American stealth helicopter downed in the Osama bin Laden raid, one colleague mischievously suggested. The Chinese military is allegedly anxious to get a look at the plans for the sophisticated chopper that was capable of evading radar detection).

The reason I mention this is because this restaurant, in one of Islamabad's best and most secure hotels, has always been an anthropologists dream.

At any one time the scene provides a wonderful insight into what's going on, who's up and who's down in turbulent Pakistan. Journalists, diplomats, business people and spooks rub shoulders around the buffet table with Pakistani government officials and bearded frontier tribesmen in flowing robes.

On a recent morning, there were several tattooed Western men with shaven heads and bull-necks, some sort of security for one of the aforementioned I assumed, for whom "low-key" was clearly not part of the training.

China, Pakistan’s ‘all-weather friend’
It’s been like this over the many years I've been coming to Pakistan, and staying at this hotel, but I've never seen so many Chinese at the breakfast buffet.

One look at the newspapers lying around the restaurant, and it’s easy to see why the Chinese are so welcome here.

Jason Lee / AP

Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, left, is welcomed by Chinese President Hu Jintao for a meeting at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Friday.

"China urges US to respect Pak sovereignty," headlined Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper Thursday. While the Express Tribune declared: "China endorses Pakistan's response to US raid."

There has been much Pakistani praise of their "all-weather friend" in Beijing.

Pakistan's Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani has been in Beijing this week and just clinched a deal in which China will provide Pakistan with 50 fighter jets to the tune of $20-25 million a pop. 

The visit was organized some time back, but China has sought to maximize its diplomatic advantage following Pakistan's humiliation over the killing of Osama Bin Laden, and the subsequent crisis in U.S.-Pakistan relations.

"China and Pakistan will remain forever good neighbors, good friends, good partners and good brothers," according to the Chinese Prime Minister, Wen Jiabao, quoted approvingly in newspapers here.

The authorities in Punjab Province have even declared they will no longer accept aid from the U.S., but only from friends who do no attach strings, read China.

Of course China and Pakistan have long been close, with Beijing allegedly helping in the development of Pakistan's nuclear weapon program, but it has only been more recently that the economic relationship has really taken off. China is pouring cash into Pakistan's infrastructure and natural resources, and in a December visit the Chinese prime minister announced billions of dollars of proposed investments.

No wonder the crowds around that buffet are looking increasingly Chinese.

Western diplomats, watching from their corner of the restaurant, seemed remarkably relaxed about the budding friendship between the two regional neighbors.

Whatever diplomatic advantage it may be seeking this week, China has welcomed the death of Bin Laden, and has every reason itself to be concerned about Islamic militancy across the mountains from its own Muslim areas. Western diplomats believe its private message to Gilani is likely to have been very different from the public platitudes.

And Chinese economic assistance can be double-edged.

Investment is primarily motivated by China's hunger for raw materials, and it is frequently accompanied by Chinese labor. Trade between the two countries is also heavily skewed in China's favor. Pakistani manufacturers cannot compete with the cheap Chinese goods flooding Pakistan's markets, leading traders to frequently grumble about quality.

Back at the breakfast buffet, the young woman who I'd (almost) bumped into at the cornflake dispenser, rose to leave with her entourage. She and a colleague carried between them a heavy bag that appeared to contain two Chinese tea sets – gifts, I assumed, for their would-be business partners in a country that for the moment needs every friend it can get.

NBC News’ Stephanie Gosk has been reporting all week from Abbottabad, Pakistan, the city where Osama bin Laden was killed by U.S. forces in a secret raid. In a phone interview Friday, she responded to questions about the town and the local reaction to bin Laden’s death and the revelation that he lived there for years.

What is the reaction to bin Laden’s death in Abbottabad?
We’ve been here all week and have been able to get quite close to bin Laden’s former compound – right outside the walls. And it’s not just the media who are interested, but also the people who live in this town.

What is most interesting is how few people actually believe bin Laden was killed in that house or that he even lived there at all.

It will be interesting over the next few days to see what their reaction is to the news that al-Qaida has put a statement online confirming that bin Laden was killed and calling on Muslims around the world to rise up and avenge his death.

Is there really still that much doubt about Bin Laden even living there?
Well, this country has a strong tradition of conspiracy theories. People here don’t generally believe anything that officials tell them. So it’s not entirely surprising that they aren’t going to believe reports coming out of the White House.

What’s interesting is the reasons why they think the White House is doing this. They will say things like, “Well, Obama wants to be re-elected in the next election, so this was really just a PR stunt.” One person that we spoke to the other day referred back to the Monica Lewinsky scandal and how things at that time seemed to be done to deflect criticism around the world. So they will go out of their way to try to fabricate these elaborate conspiracies as opposed to believing what officials tell them.

What would it take for them to believe that he was killed?
Well, that was always my next question: What would it take for you to believe he was actually killed by U.S. Navy SEALs in that house? I asked if a photo would do it, and they said, “No, no, of course not. You can doctor a photo.” When I asked about video, they said, “No, you can doctor that, too.” They simply will not believe that he was killed.

With al-Qaida’s statement coming out, it will be interesting to see if people believe it now. But they may come back and say this is just another ploy as well.  

Is Abbottabad really a well-heeled town? Have you seen the town’s alleged golf course?
We didn’t get a chance to check out the golf course. But we did get a sense of what daily life is like.

Despite all the international media coverage, there were a lot of people in this town who just got on with their lives.

In Pakistan, this is a place that people retreat to. It’s up in the mountains, so there is a cool breeze. It’s a good place to escape the hustle-bustle of Islamabad and the heat – so some people have second homes here. There are hotels – it’s just a pretty little town. 

For the people who actually believe that bin Laden was living here amongst them and was killed here, they are shocked that it could happen in their midst. It’s a place that is known not to have much of a radical element. And in Pakistan over the last few years, there are very few places where you can say that.  

We are hearing that the CIA had a safe house there, do the neighbors say that they noticed anything?
We haven’t heard from anybody that they were aware of monitoring or intelligence gathering on the ground. There is nothing that led them to any suspicions of that.

But quite honestly there was nothing to make them suspicious of the house down the road. Now people will say that it had high walls and barbed wire – which is a little unusual. And they didn’t see the women come out of the house – but that’s fairly typical. There are plenty of families where women don’t leave the house – so that wasn’t all that strange. People here didn’t really notice anything that completely out of the ordinary.

That’s really the big question: What did they know? And with that military complex down the road, how did they not know that bin Laden was in their midst? 

Does that suspicion of officials and the U.S. lend itself to suspicions about the Pakistani military, too? That they had some hand in hiding bin Laden?
No, I don’t think they are suspicious of the military. What we have heard – almost across the board – is criticism of the civilian government and the fact that they are seen as puppets of the United States.

There is also embarrassment among the Pakistani military that this raid took place at all. That U.S. Navy SEALs snuck in under their radar, hugging the mountainous terrain, killed bin Laden and then left without them ever knowing it happened until they received a phone call from U.S. officials. 

That has embarrassed and angered the military in this country – and the people themselves.

Where there any protests there today? 
There was a small protest in Abbottabad. There were maybe 400-500 people and it was organized by a radical Islamic group. It was all men. This is a town of 100,000 people – so it wasn’t really that big.

But their message was a familiar one that we have heard all over the country over and over: that their sovereignty was violated by this raid and that President Asif Ali Zardari is a puppet of the U.S.

Is there any sense of relief that bin Laden is gone?
I think there is some relief here in Abbottabad and across the country as well. Because over the last couple of years al-Qaida has turned its attention to Pakistan and conducted a number of attacks – including deadly suicide attacks in all of Pakistan’s major cities.

So people’s tolerance of al-Qaida and their violence has really diminished. So there is real anger there over the deaths in this country and I think that killing bin Laden will bring people some relief. But I think they really want the attacks to stop.

Related links: From NBC's Richard Engel: Bin Laden was a 'compassionate martyr' and Hitler loved music...

Anjum Naveed / AP

A supporter of Pakistan's government minister for religious minorities Shahbaz Bhatti mourns over his death outside a local hospital in Islamabad, Pakistan on Wednesday.

By Azhar Fateh, NBC News

LONDON - As a teenager in Karachi, the southern port city of Pakistan, much of my time was spent as a pedestrian. I absorbed the trends and culture of this diverse city, gathering sermons, dialects, laughter, aspirations, love and hatred during my walks.

With 18 million residents, Karachi is the world’s third most populous city by some counts. Residents include Muslims, Hindus, Christians and fire-worshipping Zoroastrians and it teems with different ethnicities, including Afghans, Bengalis, Burmese, Chinese, Sri Lankans, Filipinos and Iranians.

I was lucky enough to experience it first hand: I have watched Muslims running barefoot to mosques for prayers, Christians worshipping in the Baptist Central Church, and at school, Hindus studied alongside me.

It did not occur to me when I was a boy that behind their smiles and every-day routines, religious minorities of Pakistan live in constant fear of religious vendetta but as I grew older I realized that the situation was not as I had thought it to be.

But Wednesday, after the murder of Shahbaz Bhatti, the Christian minister for religious minorities, any remaining youthful illusions were finally dashed. His assassination is not the only one of his kind --  in early January Salman Taseer, the former governor of Punjab, was shot dead for criticizing Pakistan’s blasphemy law.

The Muslim politician who introduced cable television to Pakistan and encouraged the global consultancy firm KPMG to do business in the country, was assassinated for supporting the release of Asia Bibi, a Christian woman imprisoned for allegedly insulting Prophet Muhammad.

Bearing brunt of intolerance
Out of a population of 170 million, about 78 percent are Sunnis, 16 percent Shiites and 6 percent non-Muslims. The common perception is that everyone in the country regularly experiences the violence of the Taliban but the reality is that it’s mostly Muslims who get killed by their followers armed with suicide belts while non-Muslims have to face the brunt of ordinary Pakistanis armed with religious intolerance.

FAISAL MAHMOOD / Reuters

Shahbaz Bhatti (R), chairman of the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance, speaks at a news conference in Islamabad in this August 11, 2002 file photo.

After the assassination of Taseer, a friend from Karachi who graduated from a university in the U.K., celebrated his death as a triumph.

“We need to set an example for those who want to insult our prophet,” he told me. “We have an emotional relationship with our prophet and once our emotions are infuriated, we need to retaliate.”

He is not alone and pressure on Pakistan’s minorities has been building for some time.

The judiciary often fails to protect Pakistan’s Hindus, 1.6% of Pakistan’s population, says Amarnath Motumal, a Pakistani Hindu and a council member of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.

“Every month, around 25 Hindu girls are kidnapped and forcefully converted to Islam. And the police only rarely register their case,” Motumal told Geo Television in August 2010.

The country’s Christians also suffer from persecution, according to Alexander John Malik, Anglican Bishop of Lahore. 

Judges often don’t prosecute the Muslim abductors of Christian girls, he says.  In fact, in the light of the victim’s conversion to Islam, judges completely ignore the fact that these girls were forced to change their religion. Instead they forbid the forcefully converted Muslim girls to live with their Christian parents because it is illegal for Muslim children to live with non-Muslim parents.

The roots of this discrimination are not only found in the country’s laws but also in how people interpret Islam’s dictates.

For an idea of the many hard-line Muslim politicians’ feelings about non-Muslims, one needs only to go to the head of Pakistan’s largest religious party.

“Should we praise Hindus when they have occupied the disputed land of Kashmir?” Farid Paracha of Jamaat-E-Islami told Express News in October 2010. “Should we praise Hindus when they are killing thousands and millions of people?” 

In the run up to recent elections, Jamaat’s campaign featured anti-Jewish, anti-Hindu and anti-Christian chants and slogans.

AP

Salman Taseer, right, Governor of Pakistani Punjab Province, talks to reporters after meeting with Pakistani Christian woman Asia Bibi, left, at a prison in Sheikhupura near Lahore, Pakistan, in a Nov. 20, 2010 file photo.

Another fact that makes it especially difficult for non-Muslims to live in Pakistan is the Shariah, or Islamic law.  Although not a part of the Pakistani constitution, Shariah decrees that non-Muslims choose between paying a tax to live in a Muslim country, convert or migrate to a foreign land.

Another tenet of Shariah that is a part of the constitution is the blasphemy law, which dictates that anyone who insults the Prophet Mohammad should be sentenced to death.  It is under this law that Bibi, the imprisoned Christian woman, was arrested.

Taseer was assassinated by his own security guard for lobbying a change in this law.

Glimmers of hope
There are still glimmers of hope for Pakistan’s minorities, and there are Pakistani Muslims who want to co-exist with other religions.

“Shariah law has got many controversial policies that require careful consideration before we implement them,” said Rana Khizer Hayat, a Sunni and former president of the influential National Union of Pakistani Students and Alumni [NUPSA]. “I would personally not support any law that treats non-Muslims in the country as unequal to us.”

NUPSA, an organization comprising of 25 college societies, has proposed to the Pakistan government that laws limiting the right of non-Muslim citizens to become the heads of state should be repealed. 

Syed Zain Abid, a Shiite, goes further. 

“We need to interpret our religion according to the environment of the 21st century and, in accordance, controversial policies of Shariah require re-consideration or complete desertion,” he says. 

Shiite Muslims are often victims of attacks by the majority Sunni population. In January, two simultaneous suicide attacks took place on Shiites processions in Karachi and Lahore, killing 12 and injuring 79 people.

An old Hindu friend, who considers himself as much a citizen as anyone else in the country, holds out hope that the situation will improve.

“We, the Hindus, live the normal life and face the entirely same problems as other Pakistanis,” says Avenash Loughani. “The Taliban (is) killing everyone and it would be unfair for me to complain that minorities are being targeted.”