Displaced from Allai return from quake camps

With winter almost over and temperatures rising, the return process from the largest camp in northern Pakistan – home to tens of thousands of people displaced by October’s earthquake - is gaining pace. “It is getting very hot here and we are not used to such weather,” Abdul Lajan, 40, from the mountain village of Ghudlai in the Allai area of Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province (NWFP), said on Saturday. “I want to go back home,” the father of seven added, before leaving the Meira camp in NWFP’s Battagram district. The Meira camp is strung out along the banks of the Indus River, hosting quake survivors primarily from the Allai Valley in NWFP, one of the areas worst-hit by the 8 October earthquake that claimed the lives of more than 80,000 and left over 3 million homeless in parts of NWFP and Pakistani-administered Kashmir. “We started this process on 10 March. There are around 21,000 residents within the camp, which makes it the biggest camp [for the displaced] in Pakistan,” said Ged Healy, operations coordinator with the UN Office for Project Services (UNOPS), a UN agency coordinating logistics in the camp. More than 130 families have returned to their villages and hamlets since the operation began on Friday. Civil authorities are providing transport, but there is a lack of vehicles. “Transport is the main issue at the moment. We have 30 vehicles at the moment. If we have enough transport, then obviously we can get the people returned faster,” the UNOPS official added. The return process is in three parts: registration; medical checks; and immunisation where necessary. “We are doing main vaccines, including those against polio, measles, diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus (DPT), and tuberculosis. We have vaccinated almost 60 children over the past two days,” Javed Tajarabbi from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said. The effort is aimed at preventing any outbreaks of disease after survivors leave the camp. There is also an information desk in the camp run by the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) to provide legal counselling on compensation, land disputes and other issues. “We provide the returnees with legal advice and the information they need,” Shah Jihan from NRC, said.