‘Refugees in our own land’

With 24 hours to evacuate, the people of the war-torn Swat valley employed whatever little means they could to flee.

‘People were desperate,’ narrates Ayesha, a staff nurse at Saidu Hospital, ‘and a good number left with only the clothes they wore.’

Ayesha and her family count themselves lucky to be able to afford a bus ticket, the rest, she claims, were left to trudge across the rugged terrain either on foot or on donkey carts.

‘We were treated like cattle, left to our own devices. The government ordered us to move out, ‘how’ and ‘where’ was not their concern,’ she states.

It is believed that the current military operation in Swat and its adjoining areas has displaced three million people from their homes. These people have been scattered all across Pakistan in camps with little or no help from the government.

‘We were lucky to have relatives in Karachi,’ says Zahira, who comes from Shamozai and has been to Karachi a number of times.

‘But this,’ she stresses, ‘was a journey like no other.’

Thirty hours is the maximum time needed to travel from Swat to Karachi, but the immense traffic (owing to the mass exodus from, and the influx of military contingents into, Swat) made this impossible.

‘We reached Karachi in five days,’ recalls Zahira. ‘The children were ill and fatigued due to the heat’.

According to most accounts, just reaching the Kohat Tunnel from Malakand via the Indus Highway took people more than nine hours. A journey which otherwise, according to Zahira, takes less than half that time. This delay led to the tunnel’s closure, which, according to them, ‘added to their troubles’.

Now, in addition to the quest for safety, the IDPs faced the humungous task of looking for a place to spend the night too.

‘We stayed at a small hotel, but were extremely stressed as we knew that the day ahead would throw new challenges at us,’ says Zahira. ‘If only the tunnel gates had been kept open a while longer, reaching our destinations would’ve been much easier,’ she adds.

As day dawned, people resumed their journey; some went to camps in Peshawar and Rawalpindi, while others with relatives in Karachi and Lahore, headed there.’The immense heat and shortage of food and water made the journey more tedious,’ says Zahira. According to most, the public was their only source of help.

‘As we sat in buses passers-by, who were moved by our plight, handed our thirsty children juice packs,’ says Ayesha, who was travelling with her in-laws.

‘My sister in-law Nadia, due to a medical condition, is in a semi-conscious state,’ she points to a young girl lying on the charpoy. ‘This journey worsened her condition.’

Nadia, who is 17, is entirely immobile. Ayesha says that since her husband is abroad and her father in-law is too old to carry her, the family was compelled to employ the help of various other people to move Nadia into the bus. ‘Never in our life could we imagine a na-mehram touching our women, but now this military operation has left us nowhere.’

As displaced persons reached Karachi, some may have expected to find much-needed respite. But the extreme ‘Taliban-phobia’ that they encountered here left them further alienated.

‘I have never felt this helpless in my life,’ says Khan (real name withheld on request), who holds a masters degree in Political Science and was running a girls school in Swat.

‘This is the last five hundred rupees I have,’ he says as he holds up the commissary note.

Khan has been looking for a job and is willing to take up any menial chore to support his wife and four children, yet he is unable to find one.

‘Everywhere I go, people treat me like a terrorist,’ he says. ‘Employers who at first seem interested in my credentials and qualifications back off as soon as they hear the words ‘from Swat’.’

Referring to young men being shot at by the army for violating the curfew and being tortured by the Taliban for failing to follow their version of Islam, Khan says: ‘We have suffered both at the hands of the Taliban and the army. We were the ones who were forced to leave our homes; being a refugee in our own land seems strange, but when we look at ourselves, this is what we’ve become.’

Khan isn’t the only one who believes this. Feelings of isolation abound most IDPs in Karachi.

‘We feel estranged here,’ says Ayesha.

‘The Pathans have contributed greatly to the development of Pakistan. We have given our lives for our homeland, yet today when the Pathans need support and help, their Pakistani brethren deem them terrorists.’

Where there is Smoke?

'World No Tobacco Day' has been marked here, as it has been around the world. NGOs forming a coalition against tobacco have staged a walk; at seminars the dangers of the substance have been highlighted and Pakistan Railways has taken a big leap forward by banning smoking on its trains. But is the battle against tobacco really being won? Statistics indicate that smoking is growing in Third World countries even as levels drop in the developed world. The reasons are linked to the fact that awareness campaigns mean people in the west are less likely than before to take up the habit. This means that for giant companies who earn profits at the cost of health, the parts of the world where people have less access to information now offers the most lucrative markets.

Has enough been done in our country to discourage tobacco? The fact is that while laws have come in, restricting sales to juveniles or smoking in public places, implementation has been very poor. There is also a need for more aggressive effort to drive home the message about tobacco. Cigarettes and the 'sheesha' which has arrived over the last decade remain something of a fashion statement for the young and trendy. Health of course is rarely an issue teenagers think deeply about. There is also a growing rate of smoking among young women. Somewhere, despite the warnings on cigarette packets and the other efforts made, there has not been as much success as we would like to see. Surveys show people remain willing to ignore warnings. The WHO campaign for pictures as well as words on the warning labels is one we need to take up, given the high rate of illiteracy – and the fact that often, quite literally, pictures drive home messages where sentences fail. We also need to focus on spreading the 'no tobacco' message among children. They after all are the smokers of the future; in many cases they also have been able to dissuade parents who smoke. This then is a group that needs to be targeted in a more focalized manner, so that in the coming years we can have a society where tobacco is less commonplace than what is currently the case. 

Sad Story of IDPs - IV

A young girl in a bright blue dress breaks the line as men wait in a long queue leading to a distribution point at Sheikh Shehzad camp near Mardan.

Carrying bundles of pots, pans and straw matting, a young girl sets off back to her family's tent after a distribution of non-food items at Sheikh Shezhad

Volunteers cook vats of rice at a temporary roadside feeding centre in Katlang. The centre, funded by donations from local villagers, is feeding more than 4,000 people every day.

Four-year-old Habiba from Mingora has licked her plate of porridge clean at the temporary home that her family found at the government school in Pohan Colony, Mardan

During a special Friday prayer session for the displaced from Swat and Buner districts, Zubida leads a group of children from Baghdada in Mardan. In a ritual known as "Hatam Shareef", a thousand prayers are said as the children count out almonds while wishing for Peace.

Sad Story of IDPs - III

A brother and sister sleep side-by-side on the floor of a packed classroom at a primary school in Baghdada, Mardan. After the camps in Mardan reached capacity, thousands of fleeing families found shelter with locals and in the 

town's schools.

A father helps his two children to collect water from a newly installed pump at the Sheikh Shehzad IDP camp near Mardan

A young boy walks through clouds of smoke as the Sheikh Shehzad camp is fumigated against mosquitoes at dusk. The camp on the outskirts of Mardan is now home to thousands of families fleeing Swat and Buner

Children queue to fill plastic buckets at a newly constructed water tap in Jalala Camp

Carrying heavy sacks of wheat on their shoulders, local labourers help transport emergency food aid from the WFP warehouse in Mardan to waiting new arrivals from Swat and Buner

Sad Story of IDPs - II

A woman from Mingora is registered and given her refugee card in the female section of the UNHCR reception centre in Mardan

Watching her children spend their fifth night sleeping on the floor of a primary school in Baghdada, in Mardan, Raham fingers her prayer beads. She and 16 family members walked across the mountains to escape shelling in their village. "We came only in our clothes just to save our children.

Volunteers at a UNHCR-run reception centre in Mardan fill out forms for temporary ID cards for new arrivals

A crowd of newly arrived women and children wait to show their temporary ID cards at a distribution of rice and oil in an old cigarette factory near Mardan

With her young son in her arms and clutching a precious ration card, a woman from Swat collects sacks of emergency food aid at a World Food Programme (WFP) warehouse in Mardan

Sad Story of IDPs - I

An exhausted mother from Swat, Rawasia, watches over her children as they sleep on the floor of a classroom at a primary school in Baghdada, Mardan. Rawazia and her extended family fled from their village with only the clothes on their backs when their home was damaged in a mortar attack

With the camps full to capacity, newly arrived refugees are sometimes forced to drive from site to site in search of shelter. Many find places in public buildings.

Packed tightly into the back of a pick-up truck, women and children arrive at a reception centre in Katland village. Many people fleeing Swat must break the military curfew in order to escape. During the hours people are permitted to leave, heavy traffic often prevents them from going anywhere.

Row upon row of white tents make up Sheikh Shehzad camp, home to thousands of displaced families fleeing the violence in Swat and Buner

After seeing her neighbours killed in a mortar attack on Mingora, a mother of five fled to Jalala camp where she rests along with her extended family.

No escape from Hell

Despite the clear indications of the oncoming crisis of mass exodus, which was but a logical result of a full-scale military operation in Malakand Division and adjoining areas, the government, as always, had the most sluggish response for any preparedness in its wake. The now exposed National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) had nothing but empty words to offer and tried to underplay the crisis. The redundant Authority had four years to organise themselves, not to mention millions of dollars, but it is a great mystery as to why they still have a handful of staff, mostly clerical, and no real organisational or operational capacity. They have not been able to establish either the provincial or district disaster-management authorities they were supposed to set up and make them functional to form a viable and effective disaster-management system in the country. In a country like Pakistan, facing many challenges like conflicts, violence, extremism, natural disasters and mass exodus of people from conflict zones this inertia from NDMA is inexcusable.

As an obvious result of the lethargy of the governments the IDPs started pouring in at an alarming rate in Mardan, Swabi, Peshawar, Nowshera and other districts before anyone was remotely prepared to receive them. The rest is the same story of ad hoc administration, piecemeal solutions and very inadequate management regarding the IDPs, both in camp and off camp. The Provincial Relief Commissioners and the DCOs were given the task of managing the IDPs, setting up camps with the help of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) and handling the relief goods arriving from different sources. This task turned out to be way beyond their limited capacities and understandably resulted in chaos and eventual rifts between the DCOs and the District Nazims mainly on distribution of relief items. 

After the poor response of the NDMA the prime minister constituted a Special Support Group to manage the operation regarding the IDPs headed by Gen Nadeem Ahmed. Later the minister for information and broadcasting was made the focal person by the government to steer the process of IDP management and coordinate its various aspects, as well as the working of the various actors involved in crisis-management, including international aid agencies and the UN.

So now there are a variety of departments, organisations and agencies working for IDP management. There is the SSG, the ministry of information and broadcasting, the ministry of states and frontier regions, the UNHCR, the WEF, UNICEF, the provincial governments, district governments and the Emergency Response Units set up by the NWFP government's Provincial Relief Commissionerate. 

The task of registration of the IDPs is also being done by four different agencies. In the NWFP the ministry of social welfare is doing the registration of off-camp IDPs and the Afghan Commissionerate is doing the registration of in-camp IDPs with the assistance of the UNHR.

In Punjab the UNHCR is doing the registration of off-camp IDPs through partner organisations which are local NGOs, namely, SACH and SHARP. SACH is doing registration in Rawalpindi and Attock and SHARP is doing it in Lahore and other districts. Other than the UNHCR the Punjab government is doing its own registration of IDPs through the Special Branch and the Police. (Needless to say, the data collected by the two sources does not tally at all.) According to UNHCR officials they are registering IDPs who came after July 2008, but there is no definitive mechanism to ensure that. NADRA (National Database and Registration Authority) is doing the verification of the registration to prevent duplication and triplication.

Other than all these agencies the interior ministry and the home departments of the provincial governments are dealing with the security issues arising out of the mass influx in various districts.

The federal government is yet to announce the policy regarding the IDPs or to come up with any proposed plan for the three phases of disaster management. Federal information minister Qamar-uz-Zaman Kaira has announced Rs25,000 per family but has not given any date for the commencement of actual distribution. As for the policy decisions, there have been conflicting statements of various federal ministers regarding the movement, registration and camp facilities for the internally displaced people. Interior Minister Rehman Malik has announced that the IDPs outside the NWFP will not be part of the relief package announced by the government in the short or medium term, but the minister of information and broadcasting has encouraged the IDPs to travel across the country and accommodate themselves wherever they please. It is a very important that the IDPs should be given clear and precise message and a single policy be adopted to be applied uniformly.

The WFP is the lead agency responsible for food procurement and distribution both on- and off-camp to the IDPs, but as of now there is no food being prepared in the camps because community kitchens have not been set up by the UNHCR. The food given in the camps is being catered by private contractors and the bills footed by the NWFP government. The wheat flour and other food items being sent by Punjab government are not yet being used for cooking in the camps. 

The UNHCR is the lead agency for camp setting and distribution of non food items, NFIs both in and off camps. They have set up twenty three camps in NWFP which are now being managed by the NWFP government. The non-food items have been distributed to camp residents including jerry cans, utensils, mats, buckets and soap, but it has not started distribution of these NFIs to the larger off-camp IDP population. (The standard package contains the items needed by camp residents, but one wonders if the off-camp families need the same things on priority. All the items are locally purchased.) The UNHCR representative informed that the reason the distribution has not started for off-camp IDPs was that they had to have a critical mass of items before starting actual distribution which now they have and will start distribution soon. 

There is very little coordination among the various agencies and provincial governments working for the IDPs. There is still a huge shortfall of the items actually required by the IDPs, especially those off-camp and their host families, but no one seems to have any exact data regarding that. There is some estimation from the Emergency Response Unit in Peshawar which they have posted on their website, but as that is not regularly updated there is no way of knowing the met requirements and the remaining shortfall. The Punjab government received a request for 10,000 pedestal fans but after dispatching 7,000 of them it again received the request after a week. This is an indicator of mismanagement and lack of coordination.

The UN aid agencies had requested $500 million from the international community in their donors' conference but as yet they have received around $24 million. The federal government has also announced a sum of RsI0 billion for the IDPs but it is yet not clear as to where and how this money is going to be spent. There is also no information as to how much of that fund is already been spent if any and who exactly is authorised for the disbursement of that fund. There is also no planning for the actual spending.

One of the much neglected areas is the special needs of the newborn babies in the camps and their mothers. Temperatures in the camps is rising beyond 43 degree Celsius and it is heartbreaking that infants are forced to stay in appalling conditions unbearable even for adults. The government should pay urgent attention to the special needs of mothers and children, immediately shift them to better accommodation and provide them special care until they are able to return to their homes. UNICEF is the lead agency for mother-and-child healthcare and they should do better than this.

The response from the general public has remained lukewarm for a number of reasons but for people who want to help there is no information regarding the prioritised needs of IDPs. An awareness raising and educational campaign is urgently required for sending the right message to the public regarding relief.