Thousands of people having suffered the trauma of conflict and displacement have gone back to their homes in the Bajaur tribal region, only to find that more pain awaits them.
Homes are damaged in the region, services are limited and there is little assistance from the government or UN agencies, while people continue to face sporadic violence.
“Our home has been badly damaged. We don’t have money to repair it so we are basically living in the open. Our cattle have vanished and my youngest son, who is five, has severe diarrhoea but there are no doctors around,” said Zahira Bibi, by telephone from her village near Khar, the main town in Bajaur Agency.
“The situation in Bajaur is grim. There are food shortages and medicines are often not available. I have come here (Peshawar) to buy some painkillers for my mother and a few other things, so we can set up our home again,” Wali Khan Uthmankhel said according to a report by IRIN, the UN information unit.
Fighting between the army and militants had forced his family of seven to leave his home in Khar a year ago and find shelter in Peshawar. Like thousands of other internally displaced persons (IDPs), his family returned to Khar last week following announcements from provincial authorities and the military that most areas of Bajaur had been cleared of militants. The news led to the closure of two IDP camps in Lower Dir district in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, from where more than 4,000 IDPs returned, according to a June 25 update by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). The OCHA update said a funding crunch was limiting aid agencies’ ability to deliver assistance in some areas.
“The Pakistan Humanitarian Response Plan (PHRP) 2010 is funded at $180.04 million (34 per cent) of the required $537 million for six months,” it said. “The severe cash crunch means that only one of the five food assistance projects by the World Food Programme under the PHRP has received funding.”
The update also said the health cluster had received only 17 per cent, $12 million, of the $73 million it needed. “This threatens the cluster’s ability to provide services in several districts in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas.” An administrative official in Khar, who asked not to be named, said that very little effort had gone into rebuilding in the area. “We have no instructions about this and people are frustrated because they are facing tough conditions after suffering months of displacement,” he said.
Former IDP Uthmankhel said it was not fair that those displaced from Swat had received much more help then they had. “We don’t understand why we have been neglected and treated like step-children. We don’t hold any ill-will towards the people of Swat, but we deserve the same treatment,” he said.
Continued fighting is adding to the difficulties. “There have been warnings from the militants to local people not to accept government jobs or to cooperate with the administration,” said Uthmankhel.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 29th, 2010.
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