No relief from discrimination

People turned away from relief camps set up for flood victims due to lack of space, religious, ethnic discrimination.

MUZAFFARGARH: People are being turned away from relief camps set up for flood victims due to a lack of space and in some instances decisions on who gets aid appear to have been affected by religious or ethnic discrimination, according to IRIN reports.

“We saw several families of gypsies having reached a camp being turned away by other victims and some organizers of the NGO running it. The women were in tears because they had nowhere else to go,” Imdad Imran (30) a flood victim said. “People call us ‘unclean’ and accuse us of being thieves. We have camped by the road because we know other flood victims may not like us to live near them in the camps,” said a gypsy Bala Din (60), who has been living with nearly 30 other members of the community on a roadside since the floods forced people to evacuate villages across the Muzaffargarh district in early August.

Din said that they had received sporadic food hand-outs from relief workers. “But we often go hungry unlike those in camps,” he said. The nomadic gypsies who can be found across the country frequently face prejudice and they are not alone. Following the floods, other groups have also been denied aid on the basis of their ethnic or religious identity.

Dera Ghazi Khan:

Villagers from the Ahmadi sect (considered non-Muslims under Pakistan’s laws) were turned away from camps after fleeing their homes after flooding. “Local clerics began to demand that the Ahmadis not be allowed into the camps. Police backed them and nearly 500 families were affected,” Qamar Suleiman, a spokesman for the Ahmadi community from the central Punjab town of Rabwah said. There have been similar complaints from the districts of Muzaffargarh and nearby Rajanpur. “The Ahmadi community itself helped these people. Some were brought to Rabwah and some gave aid in Dera Ghazi Khan,” said Suleiman. Hassan Iqbal, the commissioner of DG Khan said that “Ahmadis should approach me directly if there is discrimination.”

In other cases cultural insensitivity appears to have influenced the relief offered to minority groups. In Karachi, nearly 600 flood victims from the Hindu community staged a protest over being given beef - a meat forbidden to them on religious grounds. Government officials attributed the incident to a misunderstanding. “There may have been cases in which some Hindus were denied a place in camps in Sindh, but Muslims have also been denied places in other cases. This flooding crisis is so immense that problems like this will occur amidst all the chaos,” Amarnath Motumal, a Hindu community leader said. Motumal said that discrimination against religious minorities was widespread but this was not linked to the floods. “We have come here, to Muzaffargarh, to stay with relatives who offered us shelter. I can’t find a job because people say they would rather help a Muslim,” said Ram Lal, 40, a Hindu from the Ghotki area in Sindh.

In other cases, the desperation for food has led to demonstrations of bias. “We saw Muslims push Sikhs and Hindus away from food distribution points and had to intervene to make sure they were fed,” said a district administration official from Sukkur. “No distinction is made by us on the basis of religion or caste when distributing relief,” Amjad Jamal, a spokesman for WFP said. Concern over discrimination remains high, with the autonomous Human Rights Commission of Pakistan expressing shock over the denial of shelter and relief to Ahmadi flood victims.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in Southern Punjab relief efforts are being hindered by administration officials and police officials who have been accused of nepotism and robbery.

Bahawalpur: The head of Rajkan police recovered relief packages sent to the relief camps for the flood victims at the residence of a local administrative official.  Revenue officer Yazman Sajid Qureshi, on the directives of the Bahawalpur district coordination officer (DCO), raided Chak 113 DNB along with the Rajkan police and arrested Haji Anwer from his home. The police said that the accused had been collecting relief packages stamped with the logo of a private TV channel at his residence. The police have registered an FIR under 550.

Rahim Yar Khan:

Flood victims in a camp at Kot Sabzal staged a protest on Wednesday and Thursday against the police for misbehaving and beating up doctors and medical staff helping out at the relief camps. Earlier in the week, doctors packed up two medical camps in the area and refused to treat patients in protest against the police’s highhandedness. The camp residents said that they needed medicines and were being deprived of relief due to police’s misbehaviour with local doctors.

Taranda Muhammad Panah: Flood victims at Moza Betahir complained that a patwari was denying them the provision of relief goods by refusing to issue ration cards.

In written complaints to the Rahim Yar Khan district coordination officer (DCO), Bahawalpur Commissioner and the Punjab chief minister they stated that the patwari, Rao Naseen Pervaiz, had threatened them with dire consequences if they keep on complaining about the issue. They stated that Pervaiz told them that he would make sure they did now receive any relief goods.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 11^th, 2010.