Heading for the plains: Repatriation of Bara IDPs under way

Nearly 12,000 families return home to Akakhel

BARA: The repatriation of displaced people belonging to the Bara plains of Khyber Agency is in progress, with people returning home from scattered areas of Peshawar and its outskirts.

Officials on Friday said 11,837 families have so far returned to their homes in villages and hamlets dominated by tribespeople of the Akakhel clan of the Afridi tribe.

After the repatriation of IPDs to the Akakhel area, the FATA Disaster Management Authority (FDMA) will announce a schedule for displaced people from other clans and sub-tribes. Officials have termed the process satisfactory and hope repatriation would be completed by the end of April.

The officials added that both civil and military institutions were engaged in the exercise. A comprehensive strategy has already been devised to ensure that civic services like health, education and clean drinking water are provided, they claimed. Similarly, educational institutions are open in the area whereas traders and businessmen are resuming routine activity.

Through the FATA Secretariat, the government has already declared Rs35,000 as a repatriation package for each returning family. Officials said this amount has been distributed to 9,160 families from Bara so far.

Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Raheel Sharif visited Tirah Valley earlier this week and said he was satisfied with the military action taken during operations Khyber-I and Khyber-II. The militants associated with banned Lashkar-e-Islam and Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan were the main target of the military action which started in the middle of October 2014.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 11^th, 2015.