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Govt accommodating only 15-20 pc IDPs, alleges NGO
By Farooq Baloch
Karachi
The government is registering and accommodating only about 15 to 20
per cent of the total internally displaced persons (IDPs) and relief
goods and other facilities are being given to IDPs only at the
showcase camps in reception area. Millions of IDPs have stayed in
nearby villages and awaiting help while government’s restrictions on
NGOs for distributing relief goods directly to IDPs is a hindrance
in relief work, The News has learnt.
Dr Mubeena Abgotwala, Chairperson of Hope, a Karachi-based NGO, who
just returned from a four-day visit of the IDP camps in Mardan,
narrated her experiences about the situation of IDPs during an
interview with The News on Wednesday.
Disappointed with government’s restrictions on NGOs to distribute
relief goods on their own, she says that the government should
cooperate with social welfare organizations and there is a way to do
that. “Relief goods should reach those who deserve it,” she said,
adding: “Many NGOs and individuals want to help IDPs but these
restrictions discourage them.”
Millions of deserving IDPs are not being given any relief goods
since they have not been registered by the government, she said.
Giving personal account of her visit to the IDP camps, she said that
they were not allowed to distribute the medicines, edibles and other
relief goods directly to the IDPs. She further said that they wanted
to distribute the relief goods by visiting tent to tent to make sure
the aid was received by deserving people.
“However, when we reached there the supervisors (in charges) of
camps did not let us do our work independently. We even asked them
to identify the IDPs needing help but they insisted we should give
all goods to them,” she said.
“When we started to distribute goods at Jalala Camp they even called
the police that took away our truck driver,” she lamented.
“They did not provide any logic why they wanted us to hand them over
the goods,” she added. Responding to a question, she said: “We did
not find any security risk at the camps or nearby areas”.
What she found cunning on the part of the government was that the
government had set up showcase or VIP camps for visitors and donors
to display rosy picture at the reception area but as they went
inside they found no facilities available at the camps.
“Prime minister, federal ministers, MNAs, diplomats and even media
people are made to visit these showcase camps where they have
sufficient goods, medicines and other living facilities to display.
These showcase camps include Shiekh Yaseen Camp, Shiekh Zayed Camp
and Hikmat Yar Hussain Camp,” she added.
“They don’t have adequate number of camps to accommodate all of them
and they are not registering each and every IDP,” she continued,
saying: “Government is providing relief goods to only registered
IDPs while a huge number of them are staying in nearby villages with
their relatives, in government schools, mosques, etc and are
deprived of all kinds of aid.”
Every single family staying in camps had complaints that they were
not given any relief goods. “There are complaints of limited or no
distribution of relief goods. Although tents are everywhere but the
inside situation of these tents is entirely different than at
reception area,” she said.
“When we visited a nearby village we found that six families were
staying in a government school. As soon as the news of our presence
at the very school spread across the village some 150-plus IDPs came
to us among whom we distributed water coolers, utensils, medicines,
mattresses, edibles and other relief goods after seeing their
computerised national identity cards (CNICs),” she elaborated.
According to Dr Abgotwala, these unregistered IDPs were not
receiving any aid from government rather they were being generously
helped by villagers. However, they could not be helped by villagers
for longer period. Even the government alone could not cover such a
huge number of IDPs and they have to take everyone on board and
should remove the restrictions on NOGs. She apprehended that this
matter was not going to be settled in the days, it may take months.
“Given that the government officials were missing from most of the
camps and no one was distributing medicines it could be understood
why so many diarrhea cases were reported among children.
If there were no restrictions we could have distributed the
medicines with our own hands. The government should remove the
restrictions of handing over relief goods to their officials and
instead allow any NGO to work independently in collaboration with
their officials. Those who want to send their contributions should
make sure that the unregistered IDPs also get the aid because
government has made no arrangements for them,” she said.
Responding to a question about recent strikes in connection with the
entry of IDPs into the city, she said that they were generally
surprised at the strike call and did not understand why they were
being treated like this in their time of crisis. However, they (IDPS)
did not show any hostility towards us despite knowing that we were
from Karachi, she mentioned.
The News: Thursday,
May 28, 2009
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