KARACHI: Last year Pakistan experienced the worst flooding in its history. This year also floods have played havoc displacing millions of people, especially in Sindh. The usual government response is to set up relief camps but little attention, if any, is given to security.
In fact, the situation is such that many of the flood relief camps are places of insecurity if not outright danger, both for refugees as well as relief workers.
Inside many camps, refugees are subject to intimidation, violence, and harassment from a variety of groups and individuals. These include other refugees, who use violence for reasons of ethnic conflict, or political pressure; and camp guards or other administration authorities, who use physical intimidation to extort money, resources or even sex.
Refugee populations in camps consist of uprooted, often traumatised, people. Many refugees happen to be from the rural areas and have little education. Most have lost contact with their families and villages, and find themselves in a situation that is, by and large, alien and unsettling for them. The result is crime and violence, or increased likelihood of recruitment into militant outfits.
The relief aid consisting of food items, clothes, medicines and other items remains a source of attraction for everyone living in the camps. Similarly, criminals of all sort especially human traffickers, child lifters and rapists try to take full advantage if security arrangements are weak.
Sqn-ldr (retd) S Ausaf Husain
Published in The Express Tribune, September 26th, 2011.
