Re: Refugees: Looking for a home
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/e26d49004e0e152c87bcaff80713ea77/608x325.jpg?MOD=AJPERES
*Internally displaced men wait for food and supply rations at a UNHCR (United Nations High Commission for Refugees) camp in Takht Bai, about 150 km northwest of Islamabad. –Reuters Photo/Faisal Mahmood
*
ISLAMABAD: Aid agencies on Saturday warned that the massive displacement caused by the fighting between Taliban and the government forces in Swat, Buner and Lower Dir could continue for next six months and their numbers could top eight million.
‘We are anticipating new IDP influx figure of 800,000 from Swat, Buner and Lower Dir, which is approximately 25 per cent of the total population of these three districts,’ a senior United Nations official told Dawn.
According to the latest figures released by the UN and NWFP government 1,10,000 IDPs have so far registered with authorities in Swabi, Mardan, Charsadda and Kohat districts after heavy ground and air assaults against Taliban positions in the valley.
The IDPs have come from Buner, Lower Dir, Swat and Orakzai Agency. Thousands are awaiting registration, the aid agencies say and another about 300,000 are on the move.
According to Muslim Aid, a humanitarian agency: ‘Due to heavy fighting peoples’ movement is very limited because of life threat. People are fleeing from the areas only in curfew break.’
Additionally reports suggest that Taliban are not allowing many people to leave the conflict zone and are holding them as human shields.
The figures registered so far are just fraction of the people displaced because of the latest fighting as most people fleeing the conflict either live with their relatives or get a rented place instead of living in the camps because of cultural issues.
The planning by humanitarian agencies also reflects this situation. They assume that out of the 800,000 expected IDPs only 300,000 would come to the camps, while the rest would find alternative places.
These numbers are in addition to the 5,60,000 already in camps because of fighting in tribal areas.
The IDP crisis in Pakistan is poised to become the largest in Pakistan with cumulative figure of old case load from Fata and new displacements from the valley expected to touch 1.3 million.
In anticipation of the heavy influx of the IDPs the NWFP government has increased the number of registration points to 29 and has also announced simplification of the registration procedures.
Aid workers say the registration process is painstakingly slow and poorly coordinated.
‘The registration activity is very difficult and IDPs are suffering due to lack of coordination, some one thousand 1000 IDPs are registered in the slow moving registration,’ said a Muslim Aid report.
UN is in the process of reviewing its initial humanitarian response appeal of $129.8 million for the current year because of the sudden surge in the number of IDPs.
‘The current response plan requires substantial revision to facilitate a comprehensive and effective response to the current situation,’ said a UN official.
The revision would cater for the possibility of increased humanitarian needs later in the year relating to new areas of conflict.
(eight million seems like a very high number, given that the UN official is saying 800,000 is 25% of the population of the districts)