My People

[ajpirzada]

UBL disbursing Rs 25,000 cash grant for IDPs

ISLAMABAD: State Minister for Finance and Economic Affairs Hina Rabbani Khar has said around 250 branches of United Bank Limited (UBL) have started the process of making cards for around 268,000 IDPs families and the disbursement of Rs 25,000 cash grant to each family. She said that the government is providing all basic facilities to the IDPs through Pakistan Bait-ul-Maal. Bait-ul-Maal is providing different swing machines to the IDPs women because their time can be consumed by this facility. She said that the government has also provided Rs 500 million to PBM, which would be spent on the welfare of
the IDPs. app
Daily Times - Leading News Resource of Pakistan

 

[ajpirzada]

ERU dispatches 47 trucks of relief goods for 10,000 displaced families



Tuesday, June 16, 2009
PESHAWAR: The Emergency Response Unit (ERU) has sent 47 trucks load of relief goods, including food items, for the displaced families of Swat, said a spokesman for the ERU here on Monday.

This is in addition to the relief items already provided to the IDPs, the spokesman said.He said these goods were sufficient to cater to the needs of 10,000 families. The goods have been dispatched from the warehouse of the ERU, he added.

Meanwhile, Pakistan Bait-ul-Maal (PBM) Managing Director Zamarud Khan said on Monday that the PBM was providing quality food to patients and their attendants in the Federal Government Services Hospital (FGSH), Pabbi, which was established for the IDPs.

He assured to provide a generator for the labour room of the hospital within a day. He was talking to media persons during his visit to the hospital, where he inspected different wards.

Chairperson National Assembly Standing Committee on Social Welfare Robina Kaimkhani and Chairperson Special Committee on National Commission for Human Development (NCHD) Faryal Talpur were also present on the occasion.

The Federal Government Services Hospital, Pabbi, has been working since May 22. The hospital has treated about 6,000 patients till now while 560 among them had been admitted and 30 major operations had been conducted. Sixty three delivery cases have also been performed at the hospital.
ERU dispatches 47 trucks of relief goods for 10,000 displaced families

 

[ajpirzada]

Anxiety, trauma common among IDPs: NGO



Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Bureau report

PESHAWAR: A non-governmental organisation (NGO), Horizon, which works in the mental health sector, has noted with concern that majority of the internally displaced persons (IDPs) are suffering from anxiety, depression and trauma.

The organisation noted the observations during a free medical camp that it arranged in collaboration with another partner organisation, ANAM, in Mardan to provide free medical and mental health facilities to over 500 IDPs.

Professor Khalid Mufti, former principal of the Khyber Medical College and director of Horizon, headed the two-member team of psychiatrists and three volunteers at the Government High School Toru, Mardan.

It was observed that 85 per cent of the IDPs examined at the camp were suffering from anxiety, depression and trauma affected-symptoms with partially fulfilled unmet needs of housing, clean water, congestion and privacy. Panic reactions for missing family persons were also seen.

Maladjusted, weary and fearful children presented the psychosomatic symptoms and behavior problems. Surprisingly, nine out of 120 children suffered from Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) symptoms for the first time. Only three severely disturbed mentally ill were identified as Borderline Personality Disorder and schizophrenia.

These IDPs were given first aid counseling and antidepressant medication. One highly disturbed patient was referred and admitted to Ibadat hospital Peshawar. Electric fans, toys and summer cotton clothes to women were distributed. Soap, toothpastes, hairbrushes and talcum powder distribution were readily received as a preferred need.

Anxiety, trauma common among IDPs: NGO

 

[ajpirzada]

Bajaur affectees get Rs7.8m cheques
(This is equal to nothing)


Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Our correspondent

KHAR: The first instalment of Rs7.8 million compensation cheques for the affectees of Bajaur military operation was distributed among the heirs of the victims.

The distribution ceremony was held at Agency Headquarter Khar where Assistant Political Agent Iqbal Khattak distributed cheques among the members of the affected families. A large number of tribesmen, who have lost their dear ones, were present on the occasion.

Addressing the gathering, the APA said the federal government had allocated an amount of Rs32.575 million for the affectees of the military operation and bomb blasts that would be distributed in an organized manner.

“The government is committed to restore peace and writ of the state in tribal areas,” APA said, adding the militants will not be allowed to play havoc with the lives and properties of the tribespeople. He urged the tribesmen to cooperate with the political administration in elimination of the militants from the tribal areas.

Bajaur affectees get Rs7.8m cheques

 

[ajpirzada]

Rich states fail to assist IDPs: Oxfam



Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Islamabad

A weak international donor response is hampering the efforts to assist more than two million IDPs comprising women, men and children, affected by the conflict in NWFP, raising the risk of prolonged suffering and instability.

In a report published Monday by the international agency Oxfam, it said the Pakistani authorities and the humanitarian community have made significant efforts to respond to the world’s biggest and fastest displacement of people in more than a decade but are still struggling to cope, says a press release.

Many displaced people have not received adequate water, sanitation, food, healthcare, cash, information, and shelter assistance, especially those in unofficial camps and host communities, where approximately 85 per cent of the displaced people are staying. In such challenging circumstances, women and children are most at risk, Oxfam said.

“The relief effort has been undermined by the lack of money, which has contributed to delays in providing adequate water, sanitation, shelter and health care,” said Neva Khan, Country Director Oxfam in Pakistan.

“The United Nation’s revised appeal for $543 million is barely a quarter-funded six weeks into the emergency and most of that was given to support the exodus of people fleeing clashes last year. Aid agencies are struggling for funds just as the summer monsoons are approaching, which raises the risk of disease. Much more needs to be done, especially by the international community, to meet immediate needs and support a recovery that will help future peace and stability,” she said.

The report titled ‘Too Little, Too Slow: Why More Must be Done to Assist Pakistan’s Displaced Millions’ says that host communities have played a vital role in preventing a catastrophe but are struggling with dwindling resources and insufficient help. The humanitarian situation remains highly volatile as the conflict spreads, triggering new displacements, it says.

Oxfam urges the rich countries to support Pakistan’s democratic political leadership and local civilian institutions to lead a robust relief, recovery and reconstruction strategy. Affected communities - especially vulnerable groups such as women - and local civil society organisations must be given a meaningful part. The strategy must help address the root causes of instability and conflict.

“So far, the rich states have not only failed to adequately address the humanitarian needs of more than two million women, men and children but have also risked missing crucial opportunities to support efforts that can help stabilise a volatile region. With the humanitarian situation threatening to deteriorate, time is running out,” said Ms Khan.

Working with local partners, Oxfam is planning to assist up to 360,000 people both inside official camps and elsewhere with water and sanitation, non-food items, cash grants, and hygiene promotion.
Rich states fail to assist IDPs: Oxfam


Camp for IDPs set up
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Islamabad

IIMCT, Railway General Hospital, Rawalpindi in collaboration with Helping Hands, an NGO, established a special medical camp for the women and children among the internally displaced persons (IDPs) at Jalala Refugee Camp. A team of six doctors and two lady doctors, headed by Associate Professor Dr Muhammad Tahir Choudary, from the Railway General Hospital examined around 1,755 patients and distributed medicines worth Rs78,000 among them, a hospital spokesman told APP here Monday.

Camp for IDPs set up

 

[ajpirzada]

Team returns from Mardan

Tuesday, June 16, 2009
By Our Correspondent

LAHORE

PUNJAB Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif’s monitoring team submitted its report to the CM on Tuesday after visiting the medical facilities set up for Swat operation victims.

The team comprised MNA Tehmina Aurangzeb, Afzal Malik, MPAs Mehr Ishtiaq, Rana Mubashir and Saba Sadiq. The team visited the Mardan Medical Complex, Takht Bai Medical Complex, Jalala Medical Complex, Katlan Medical Complex and the Lund Khor Medical Complex.

The team in its finding mentioned that there were no female doctors at all relief camps except those being assisted by the Punjab medical teams. They said there was no electricity at the Lund Khor relief camp and the Katlan Medical Complex due to which all those in need of surgical emergency had to go to the Mardan camp for treatment.

To solve this problem two 15 KVA generators each worth Rs 0.2 million, one for each medical complex, have been provided by PML-N MPA Mohsin Latif which would help conduct operations at these sites.

The NWFP government had appreciated the support extended by the Punjab government and PML-N members for the IDPs. The NWFP government had extended a letter of thanks to the former Lahore Mayor Khwaja Hassan to commend his frequent visits and sincere efforts in the relief operation for the IDPs.
Team returns from Mardan

 

[ajpirzada]

taken from BBC

 

[ajpirzada]

 

[RabzonKhan]

Jolie, Pitt donate $1m for IDPs

June 19, 2009



WASHINGTON: Hollywood stars Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have donated $1million from their Jolie-Pitt Foundation to the UN refugee agency to help the internally displaced Pakistanis from Swat. According to People.com, UNHCR chief Antonio Guterres thanked the stars and called the situation in Pakistan “the most challenging humanitarian crisis of the past decade”. Jolie has worked as UNHCR goodwill ambassador for eight years and visited Pakistan thrice in that period. app

 

[ajpirzada]

she helped us a lot during 2005 earthquake as well

 

[ajpirzada]

Pakistan: New refugee aid reaches northwest


Geneva, 19 June (AKI) - Urgent aid for the millions of people displaced by recent conflict in the restive northwest has arrived at Chaklala Military Air Base in Islamabad, the United Nations refugee agency said on Friday.

The agency said it welcomed the airlift of more than 35,000 kilogrammes of relief supplies, including tents and blankets, donated by the Irish and Norwegian governments.

The total value of the relief is 318,000 dollars. It arrived aboard a flight from Brindisi in southern Italy to the Pakistani capital Islamabad, said UNHCR.

The UN organised the flight but Ireland and Norway covered all the freight and handling costs of the aid items.

These included 6,600 blankets and 220 tents offered by Norway as well as 1,000 kitchen sets and 900 mosquito nets, donated by the Irish government's overseas aid department.

The UN said recently there were 2 million refugees who had been displaced by fighting between the army and Islamist militants in the northwest in recent months.

However, last week Pakistani officials put the figure at 3.5 million refugees.

The UN has begun an international appeal for urgent aid totalling 543 million dollars but has only received about a quarter of the amount.
Pakistan: New refugee aid reaches northwest - Adnkronos Security

 

[ajpirzada]

IDPs have pushed their hosts ‘to the limit’
Friday, 19 Jun, 2009 | 03:33 AM PST

ISLAMABAD: People fleeing fighting in Pakistan are putting a huge burden on communities where they are sheltering but the United Nations can only help a fraction of them because it doesn’t have enough funds, a UN official said.

Aid agencies have issued urgent, multi-million dollar calls for aid for people displaced by the fighting. Nearly 2 million people have fled the fighting in Malakand division and other areas, top UN humanitarian coordinator in Pakistan Martin Mogwanja told a news conference on Thursday.

While some of the internally displaced persons have moved into relief camps set up by aid agencies and the government, most are staying with friends or relatives in so-called host communities.

‘This is a massive, massive influx of people to be suddenly hosted within a space of three to four weeks,’ Mr Mogwanja said.

He said in some places scores of people were crammed into a couple of rooms.

Thousands of tons of food and other supplies have been distributed but the strain on communities was still immense, he added.

‘The healthcare services, the public water services, the sanitation services, the schools services, have all been pushed to their absolute limit and some have surpassed their limits,’ he said.

The United Nations appealed last month for $543 million to help the displaced but only $166 million, or 31 per cent of that, has materialised, he said.

‘Our resources are limited and we are reaching only a fraction of those whom we would like to reach among the host communities and this is a great concern,’ he said.

Mr Mogwanja declined to say when he thought the displaced might be able to go home, saying the government and the United Nations had drawn up a set of conditions which needed to be met, including security and the restoration of utilities and services.

‘The government is very clear that it wants to achieve these conditions as soon as possible and they are working very hard to do so,’ he said.

‘But as of now, we have not come across a situation where all conditions are complete but we’re hopeful that these conditions can be met in the near future,’ he said.

The military is planning an offensive against Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan leader Baitullah Mehsud in his stronghold in South Waziristan.

Already, thousands of people have left the region, residents say, and a full offensive is likely to spark another exodus into a region where UN staff cannot go because of security worries.

Two foreign UN workers were killed in a suicide attack on a hotel in Peshawar on June 9, but Mr Mogwanja said that would not stop the aid effort. – Reuters
DAWN.COM | Provinces | IDPs have pushed their hosts ?to the limit?

 

[RabzonKhan]

‘Jihadists’ helping IDPs in camps, host communities

June 25, 2009

* Washington-based aid group says militants and other ‘political actors’ are ‘filling vacuum created by slow pace of help’ to gain support

ISLAMABAD: Inadequate assistance is allowing militant groups to operate in camps and communities housing hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs) of Swat, an aid group said on Wednesday.

UN officials said this week that only about 30 percent of a $543 million aid appeal it launched in May in a bid to avert a long-term humanitarian crisis had been met. Aid group Refugees International said the slow pace of help had created a vacuum, which militants and other "political actors" were filling.

"Jihadist groups are present, leading an international agency to suspend its visits in some camps on Fridays and Saturdays as 'these are the days the jihadists distribute their assistance'," the Washington-based group said in a report on Wednesday.

Refugees International did not identify the agency concerned. It said it had witnessed a similar phenomenon in Iraq.

At least 45,000 people have already fled South Waziristan as the military gears up for its next phase of the offensive against Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud and his thousands of followers in their stronghold near the Afghan border.

The United Nations and other agencies estimate more than 80 percent of the IDPs are staying with families and friends in "host" communities rather than in camps, putting enormous strain on already over-stretched facilities.

According to the Refugees International report, "the implications of this humanitarian crisis and growing instability have not been adequately recognised" and more funding is urgently needed to help the United Nations and other agencies. It said one aid organisation, which it did not identify, had reported "pockets of starvation".

According to the report, "politically-motivated actors" were helping the displaced in order to gain their support. That aid ranged from portable fans to mobile telephone cards, it said. Some candidates running in local elections had even established their own camps, the report said.

Last month, aid officials said members of a charity on a UN watch list were helping the displaced. Officials identified the previously unheard of Falah-e-Insaniat as an offshoot of the Jamaatud Dawa (JD) charity.

The United Nations placed the JD on a terrorist list in December, saying it was an alias for the banned Laskhar-e-Tayyaba group. Analysts have said it was unlikely the government would stop groups like the Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation from providing help in the camps – unless they engage in militancy – because there were no laws banning such activity. reuters

 

[ajpirzada]

^^^ so when these 'jihadist' distribute assistance y dont these international agenices go and take their place. y do they let the vaccum to exit if they are so bothered.

 

[ajpirzada]

Provision of relief to IDPs



Volunteers making a difference but quietly

Thursday, June 25, 2009
By Daud Khattak

PESHAWAR: As people serving the internally displaced persons (IDPs) from Malakand are seen struggling to highlight their activities through the media, a small group of young volunteers headed by a retired Army officer have been involved selflessly over the past 40 days to provide relief to the uprooted families.

Colonel (retd) Iqbal Shaheen and his group of 50 volunteers, mostly from educational institutions of the NWFP, is involved in receiving the goods for IDPs at the wheat godowns near the Haji Camp bus terminal and delivering the same to schools and houses in different union councils of Charsadda, Mardan, Swabi and Nowshera districts.

Their non-stop work begins in the morning and ends in the evening. To be in time for work early in the morning, volunteers are staying in the same compound with their own arrangements for meals.

“We’ve no office boy. Our volunteers are doing all the office work as well as preparing their lunch, dinner and breakfast,” said Dr Ijaz Aasi from the Frontier Homoeopathic College, Peshawar.

Wearing purple bands around their chests, holding notebooks and pens in their hands, one volunteer was standing alert at the head of each truck being loaded by labourers to be dispatched to different union councils in Nowshera district.

The two large godowns were full of bags of flour, pulses, salt, sugar and packets of salt, medicines, soap as well as clothes, blankets, sleeping mats, mattresses and pillows.“We started work here under the guidance of colonel sahib from ashes. Not a single electricity bulb and no water were available. The volunteers cleansed the office, requested the Pesco officials for power supply and arranged water to continue their work,” said Aasi.

Pointing to the 35 trucks parked for loading the relief goods, he said those would be dispatched to Nowshera. Earlier, they had sent truckloads of relief goods to Mardan, Charsadda and Swabi districts as well as to the troubled spots of Buner and Mingora.

Talking to The News, Colonel (retd) Iqbal Shaheen said they had started the work at this compound on May 15 and so far received and dispatched scores of trucks at the godowns and to different areas where the IDPs were stationed at schools, houses and with host families.

He said their work was in the sphere of the Emergency Response Unit (ERU) working under the provincial government. After loading the trucks here, Shaheen said they handed over it to teachers in the respective union councils for onward distribution to IDPs in schools and houses.

All the record of the goods — both food and non-food items — was kept by the volunteers and there is a crosscheck after the loading of the food and non-food package at each truck. “Not even a single cake of soap is used by these young men who are responsible for the whole operation at the godowns. They purchase everything from the market for their personal use,” claimed Shaheen.

Each volunteer has been issued an identity card. They are numbering the food packages, then corresponding it with the number of families, sign the papers after crosscheck and hand the truckload of the items to schoolteachers who are responsible for distribution of the goods to the IDPs at schools in their respective union councils.

Colonel Shaheen said this was a learning opportunity for the whole nation. “This [volunteerism] is a workable solution for problems in a society which is riddled with corruption and the only possible way to ensure transparency,” he said while referring to complaints of corruption in the goods distribution for IDPs.
Provision of relief to IDPs