Displaced people loot UN supplies

PESHAWAR - NWFP Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain said Saturday that resuming fresh military operation against militants in Swat and Buner would certainly increase the number of internally displaced persons which could cross the figure of 1.5 million.
However, in Mardan, desperate internally displaced people looted UN supplies at a camp.
We alone, at this stage, are unable to provide shelter to such a mass of displaced people because the NWFP is comparatively a poor province, he explained urging the international community to assist them financially by releasing huge funds for the purpose at this critical juncture.
He held the Taliban responsible for the bloodshed of civilians for no sin in war on terror because the militants did not honour the peace agreement struck with the government after fulfilling all their demands, which were the implementation of the Nizam-e-Adl Regulation and setting up of Darul Qaza in Malakand Division. No more talks, all doors have been shut, he said, adding that the security forces would trace militants till their complete elimination because all rounds of talks had failed.
Informing the media persons about the actual figure of the IDPs, he said that the government had expected that the number of displaced people could cross the figure of 1.5 millions. Majority of the migrants took shelter with their relatives in hitherto peaceful districts of NWFP while some of the affectees resorted to go to cities in Punjab and Sindh, he said.
To a question he said that 1.5 millions included the IDPs who had shifted to the safer places in the beginning, adding that among the early IDPs 15,000 families had been placed into camps, while 78,000 families were scattered and either they had taken shelter with their relatives or were residing in rented houses. Due to re-launching of military offensive, 113,000 people were registered with the government in different camps while about 25,000 fresh IDPs were out of the governments established camps.
As the fighting between security forces and the militants was getting fierce in Swat, Buner and Lower Dir, the fleeing of people to safer places was on the increase, he said adding that 0.5 million more were expected to move to safer places. To accommodate the worried IDPs, he said, seven more camps had been set up in the adjacent areas including Swabi, Mardan and Dargai tehsils of Malakand Agency.
As various departments under the control of Provincial Government had shared the huge chunk in Chief Ministers fund for IDPs by donating their salaries for two and three days, he also demanded of the different federal departments to immediately announce relief package to help their brothers. He also demanded of the Chief Ministers, Ministers, provincial departments and well off people of other provinces to play their due role and announce a handsome package for the displaced people who were eying on their help. He also demanded of the international donor agencies to describe the massive exodus as a calamity and help them wholeheartedly at this critical juncture.
Tents were satisfactory neither in summer nor in winter and the IDPs were facing multiple miseries, he said. The government was planning to shift the camped IDPs to schools, colleges and government buildings because there were no electricity and water supply facilities available to the already affected people in the camps established by the government, he further said.
Agencies add: Civilians cowered in hospital beds on Saturday and refugees looted UN supplies - all of them desperate for relief from the fighting that has engulfed Swat Valley.
Witness accounts indicated that scores of civilians have already been killed or injured in the escalating clashes in Swat and the neighbouring Buner and Lower Dir districts.
Even the medics are gone: Only three doctors remained Saturday at the hospital in Swats main town, Mingora - all of them working at full stretch.
Riaz Khan, a 36-year-old schoolteacher, his wife and two daughters occupied four of the beds, shrapnel wounds on their arms and their legs bandaged. Khan said his other two daughters were killed three days earlier when a mortar shell hit their home near Mingora.
We buried our daughters on Thursday when the army relaxed the curfew, he told a foreign news agency. We reached the hospital only with great difficulty.
Nisar Khan, one of the three doctors left, said about 25 war-wounded were among the 100 patients.
In Mardan, crude camps have mushroomed. On Saturday, the desperation of the refugees was laid bare with television footage showing dozens of men making off with blankets and tins of cooking oil. A policeman thumped one looter with his rifle butt while a man wearing a T-shirt bearing a UN logo urged others to return their loot.
When people are desperate, its hardly surprising that things like this happen, said Ariane Rummery, a spokeswoman for the UN refugee agency.
The agency has registered some 150,000 people fleeing the latest fighting. Pakistani and UN officials say the total number displaced may reach half a million.