Go home or else: IDPs in Jalozai set to lose transport facility

Deadline for repatriation is Tuesday; no concrete plan for next step yet; IDPs from violence-hit areas can stay on.

PESHAWAR:

The deadline set by the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) government for the return of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) from Bajaur and Mohmand agencies will end on Tuesday, June7, 2011. Future plans for IDPs still living in Jalozai Camp near Pabbi in Nowshera will be decided soon, an official told The Express Tribune.

The deadline was fixed in a high level meeting of the Return Task Force (RTF) on May 16, 2011 in Peshawar, with the RTF deciding to vacate Jalozai Camp and shift all the IDPs to their hometowns.

After the deadline passes, the K-P government has ordered a halt to free transport facilities for the remaining displaced person and asked the Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) to meet with the RTF to chalk out future plans for the remaining IDPs, sources said. “We are convening an RTF meeting very soon and no extension is under consideration for the remaining IDPs” a high level official said on condition of anonymity. He added that all the displaced people belonging to safe areas would go back and no one will be allowed to remain in the camp.

Last month, IDPs in Bajaur and Mohmand Agency refused to go back but relented when the K-P government set June 7 as the final deadline for their return. More than 12,000 IDP families are living in Jalozai Camp and 9,641 went back, but 2,359 are still remaining in the camp, PDMA Spokesman Adnan Khan told The Express Tribune. He added that more than eight thousand families from Khyber Agency and unsafe areas of Bajaur are still living in Jalozai Camp.

The remaining 2,359 families have refused to go back and demanded that the government first pay them house compensation, because most of these people have no homes left standing in their villages. “We have no home in our villages because security forces demolished our house during the operation, so how we can go back?” asked Siraj Khan of Bajaur Agency, who has lived in Jalozai camp for the last two years. “If the government pay’s us compensation to rebuild our houses, only then we will be able to go back,” Siraj explained.

According to the PDMA report, a total of 9,521 houses were partially or completely damaged in different parts of the Bajaur and Mohmand agencies from August 2008 to date; 8,455 houses in Bajaur Agency and 1,066 houses in Mohmand Agency.

“We will compensate all 9,521 homeowners and payments of Rs400,000 to those whose houses have completely been destroyed and Rs160,000 for those with partially damaged houses has been decided,” Adnan Khan said.

Adnan Khan said that most areas of Bajaur and Mohmand agencies have been declared safe and have been cleared of militants, but with the government’s plan to start reconstruction and rehabilitation in these areas cannot start without the return of these people. “We assured all IDPs than they will receive house compensation if their house was partially or fully damaged,” Adnan Khan assured.

He said that some areas of Bajaur and Mohamand Agency have not been cleared thus far and military operations are underway in Kamangara and Chamarkand tehsils in Bajaur Agency and Safi and Baizai tehsils in Mohmand Agency, adding that IDPs from these areas will be allowed to remain in the camps, Adnan added.





Published in The Express Tribune, June 7^th, 2011.