Relief Short for Millions Displaced by Pakistani Fighting

The Pakistani Army has stepped up its offensive in the Swat Valley as part of its expanded campaign against the Taliban and Al-Qaida. More than two million people have been driven from their homes by clashes between the government and militants in the past month, in addition to the 400,000 already displaced in fighting last year, according to the UN.

Ron Redmond, a spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, told reporters in Geneva that most of the families fled the Mingora and Char Bagh areas in Swat district to seek refuge in Mardan, Swabi and Charsadda districts of the province.

"To respond to this new influx, UNHCR, its partners and NWFP authorities have established two new camps in Charsadda and Peshawar districts.

The Sugar Mill camp, in Charsadda, received 400 families, or 2,400 individuals on Monday and since then more people arrived, Redmond said.

"Some families who arrived in Sugar Mill told our teams that they had been living in their basement for a month. They said they were about to run out of food when the curfew was finally lifted last Saturday and Sunday and they were told to evacuate the area. One family said they ate spinach and bread for 25 days before they were finally able to leave their home for safety," he said.

Displaced families in the UN's Jalala camp, Mardan district North West Frontier Province (Photo by A. Rummery © UNHCR)

"The displaced cited shortages of food and medicine as major problems for those who remain stranded in the conflict zone," said Redmond.

The number of people displaced by the conflict in North West Frontier Province has risen above 2.5 million, and a shortage of funds could cut relief services there, UN agencies say.

Even before the current crisis started May 2, the UN World Food Programme was feeding more than six million people in Pakistan.

In May alone, the agency distributed 40,000 metric tons of food – enough to feed 2.6 million people for one month – valued at $40 million.

The World Food Programme today sent nearly 100 metric tons of urgently-needed food to northwest Pakistan as part of an innovative plan to help the internally displaced people.

WFP's shipment of a highly nutritious peanut paste containing skim milk, sugar, vitamins and minerals called Plumpy'Doz will be distributed to children under five.

The agency, along with the Pakistani Government and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, will hand out Plumpy'Doz as part of a new "service point" approach, officials say, in which supplies will be distributed through 28 humanitarian hubs in protected areas close to the homes of uprooted families.

Fewer than 10 percent of internally displaced persons are living in the overcrowded camps, while the humanitarian hubs are situated within easy reach of host communities.

WFP Executive Director Josette Sheeran says that the agency is ready to take new approaches to reach the large displaced population in the coming months.

"Food is a basic building block for life, and in Pakistan, it goes beyond immediate nourishment by providing peace and stability to the human tide of people uprooted by conflict," she said.

But funding for relief supplies of food and medicines is not keeping pace with the needs. On Wednesday, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitaries Affairs said the UN has less than half of the $280 million sought to meet the food needs of Pakistan's internally displaced persons.

The $543 million Humanitarian Action Plan launched late last month is only 22 percent funded and stocks of essential drugs will run out by the end of this month. There is already a shortage of hygiene kits and soap in all camps housing some 200,000 of uprooted people.

The World Health Organization said Wednesday that the portion of the Action Plan dedicated to health needs is only 11 percent funded.

There is a high risk of communicable disease outbreaks due to overcrowding, contaminated water, poor sanitation and inadequate health care provision, among other factors, the world health body said, cautioning that a funding shortfall will hamper abilities to detect and contain outbreaks.

Nonprofit aid agencies such as CARE are doing what they can to feed and shelter displaced people outside the overcrowded camps.

"CARE has turned out to be a trendsetter in this massive humanitarian crisis by giving shelter to out-of-camp IDPs," said Idrees Khan, mayor of Rustam Union Council in the village of Rustam, close to the conflict zone in Buner. "The UN and government give tents only to those persons living in camps. But the vast majority of IDPs live outside camps."

The local population, which, at 40,000, barely outnumbers the newcomers, faces a huge challenge housing them. Speaking at the distribution ceremony of tents among the displaced on Sunday, Khan said the local people have run out of buildings and structures to house IDPs from Buner. The only solution, he added, is to provide tents that families can pitch anywhere they want.

Said Hasan Mazumdar, CARE International in Pakistan country director, "Pakistanis are more than generous toward their neighbors in need, but they are already overwhelmed. That's why CARE is focusing on meeting needs in host communities, many of which were very poor to begin with."

Internally displaced persons camp in Mardan, Pakistan (Photo © Jean-Pierre Amigo courtesy MSF)

In Mardan, northwest of the capital, Islamabad, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières, MSF, is supporting a displaced persons' camp, providing health care, tents, and access to clean water, as well as building latrines and distributing relief items.

The needs here are huge, says Jean-Pierre Amigo, MSF's emergency field coordinator for internally displaced persons in Pakistan. "On the fourth day, this camp reached its limit to receive more people," Amigo said. "So far we have set up 516 tents in this IDP camp and we received the permission to use the neighboring land to set up an extension that can host additional 700 to 800 tents."

In the MSF medical facility in the Mardan camp, medical staff are performing consultations, providing free medicines and offering 24-hour emergency response and referral by ambulance to the nearest hospital. Teams have set up a labor and delivery room with ante-natal and post-natal care.

"Since I arrived in the Mardan IDP camp we have had between 150 and 300 medical consultations per day," says MSF's Dr. Amjad, who previously worked at the MSF-supported Saidur Sharif hospital in Swat before he had to flee the area.

MSF was forced to halt operations in the volatile Swat district in mid-April when the conflict was intensifying. As MSF was the only organization supporting the hospital in Mingora, Swat's largest city, and providing ambulance service in that region, people there have been left with no access to emergency medical care.

Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2009. All rights reserved.