Compounding Miseries: Food supplies to Khyber refugees halted

Government claims that the IDPs are being provided cash handouts to buy their own rations instead.

LANDIKOTAL: Food supplies to refugees fleeing the fighting in Khyber Agency have been suspended for the past three months. More than 450 families in the Peshawar-Jalozai have not been able to get their daily rations from the government, which claims that the internally displaced persons are being provided cash handouts to buy their own rations instead. But the refugee families claim that they have received neither money nor food from the government. Adam Khan, one of the refugees, said that many families were forced to pluck fruits from nearby orchards to survive, given the lack of employment opportunities near the refugee camp.



Published in The Express Tribune, June 25^th, 2011.