The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that India has been blocking humanitarian assistance from Pakistan to Sri Lanka amid the devastation in the island nation following the deadly floods. In a statement, the Foreign Office (FO) said that a special aircraft carrying relief supplies faced a delay of more than 60 hours while awaiting flight clearance by India. According to the FO, the partial flight clearance issued by India after 48 hours was “operationally impractical”, as it was time-bound for only a few hours and provided no validity for the return flight, severely hindering the urgent relief mission for the people of Sri Lanka.
