Author: Mohammad Shehzad in Muzaffarabad
Publication: Rediff.com
Date: December 9, 2005
URL: http://ia.rediff.com/news/2005/dec/09spec1.htm?q=sp&file=.htm
Travelling to Muzaffarabad today is a very
different experience from what it was immediately after the October 8 earthquake.
In those days, one would have to wait for
hours in traffic snarls caused by people from all parts of the country rushing
to the city and the adjoining villages with truckloads of relief goods. There
were queues -- spread over kilometres -- of vehicles loaded with food supplies
and clothes. The two-and-a-half hour journey from Islamabad to Muzaffarabad
stretched to anywhere between six and eight hours.
Today, the same road is almost desolate. The
supply of relief goods has dried up. The mountains in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir
have become a deadly killer. Covered with a thick layer of snow, the cold,
winding mountain passes have brought winter and misery for the quake victims.
Most of the quake-hit in PoK are without shelter,
adequate food supplies and warm clothes. The last week's first wave of snowfall
has killed eight people, including five children in Abbottabad, North West
Frontier Province, who died of pneumonia.
Forty-two-year-old Jannat Bibi is beating
her chest and pulling her hair out in agony in her thin tent at the University
Town Camp in Muzaffarabad. Her two-and-half month old daughter Zainab is dead.
"Zainab contracted pneumonia after the
snowfall dropped the temperature to 4 degrees Celsius. She died yesterday.
I could not protect her against winter with this cloth-tent. I did my best.
I lit a fire but still it was too cold in the night. I have been begging the
army for a winterised tent that I never got. My daughter would have still
been alive had I got it," she wails.
The University Town Camp is home to about
800 people. It has around 150 tents. Even under a shining afternoon sun, you
shiver inside a tent. The floor is as cold as a slab of ice.
People try to keep their tents warm by laying
plastic sheets on the ground and burning wood and shrubs inside. It has caused
several deaths, with tents catching fire.
When Jannat's story is brought to an army
officer's attention at the Stadium Ground Helipad, he says, "Thousands
of victims are sleeping rough without tents. We can't provide everyone tents
and that too 'winterised' ones!"
Many villagers living on the mountains are
desperately looking for tents. But the helicopters are dropping just food.
"I would chase every helicopter hovering
over the Neelam Valley hoping that it might drop a tent. I waited for two
weeks and finally decided to come to Muzaffarabad. I hoped to get a tent from
the army relief camps. I literally begged for a tent but no one took pity
on me. I went to the mujahideen [jihadis] of Jamatud Dawa who provided me
a tent immediately," says Ali ur Rehman, a Neelam Valley villager.
"People are walking barefoot on snow
in the Neelam Valley," he adds.
On the condition of anonymity, a United Nations
official reveals a big tent scam.
UNHCR [the UN refugee agency] gave the Pakistan
Army more than 2,000 winterised tents for distribution among the most deserving
quake victims living at an altitude of 5,000 to 6,000 feet above sea level,
the official says.
The army officers sold them in Islamabad's
markets.
A farmer named Nizamuddin bought one such
tent for one of his relatives living in PoK. The UNHCR checked the local markets
and it was confirmed that its tents had been sold.
The UNHCR has discreetly taken up the issue
with Federal Relief Commissioner Major General Farooq Ahmad Khan, who has
assured the agency that the 'culprits will be brought to book.'
Some weeks ago, Army Spokesman Major General
Shaukat Sultan made a similar statement when the Dawn reported that an army
captain was caught red-handed stealing and selling tents in Rawalpindi.
Cut back to Muzaffarabad.
A crowd surrounds the tent of 38-year-old
Bashir Ahmad. His 68-year-old father Sultan Ahmad has been found dead. The
cold killed him. Bashir too had been running from pillar to post for a winterised
tent that he never got.
There are many similar stories. Nasim Begum,
25, lost her eight-month-old son Sakhawat to pneumonia. He died when the temperature
dropped to 4 degrees Celsius.
Another mother, 32-year-old Shahana Bibi,
has moved to Jalalabad Park from the Neelum Valley due to severe winter. She
plans to migrate to Rawalpindi to save the rest of her family from the biting
cold.
"Last week, the temperature in the Neelam
Valley went into minus and my six-month-old infant Kamran contracted
pneumonia. There were no health services available in the Valley. My husband
and I started our journey to Muzaffarabad on foot for our son's treatment.
But Kamran died on the way," says a grief-stricken Shahana.
"In some high-altitude areas, it is snowing
at noon. Snowfall has not started in Muzaffarabad city and Murree. The situation
will worsen in January when the entire region will be covered by snow and
the temperature will drop to -10 degree Celsius," says an official of
the United Nations Children's Emergency Fund.
"More deaths will be inevitable since
more than 75 per cent of the victims are living in ordinary tents in the quake-hit
areas. The earthquake has already killed more than 100,000 and rendered four
million people homeless. Tens of thousands of children could still die when
the intensity of the winter increases," the official adds.
The increasing number of winter-related ailments
lends credence to UNICEF's fear.
The jihadi outfit Jamatud Dawa has the most
well organised relief camps in the quake hit areas. It has confirmed receiving
800 pneumonia patients on a daily basis in Muzaffarabad alone. Most of them
are children. The 22 field hospitals in Muzaffarabad are unable to attend
to all the patients. The winter is demoralising the doctors and relief workers.
"Pneumonia is not alarming in Azad Kashmir
[PoK]. There used to be hundreds of pneumonia cases before the quake,"
says a fellow of the Leadership for Environment And Development, the largest
network of individuals and institutions working on sustainable development
in Pakistan.
"Since the people have lost their homes
in the earthquake, they are unable to keep themselves warm. They must migrate
to warmer places," the LEAD fellow adds.
People want to migrate but this harms the
vested interests of the local politicians. They fear the quake-victims will
not return - affecting their constituency.
"The politicians have bribed the local
prayer leaders who have issued an edict for the people to stay where they
are. In Batgram, around 50,000 quake victims have stayed on the Alai mountains,"
claims Munnoo Bhai, a columnist.
"The edict says that people should not
leave their homeland due to the fear of death because a Muslim fears only
Allah's wrath. All the Muslims [living on in the upper reaches] are bound
to die. Death is certain. Moreover, the clerics are warning people that if
they leave their houses, the land mafia will occupy their land," Munno
Bhai adds.
"It is not the edict alone that has stopped
us from migration. Most of us have our valuables buried under the rubble,"
says Safeer Ahmad, a schoolteacher in Arja, a village close to Muzaffarabad.
"The wood of our houses is very expensive
-- it can be used in reconstruction. We will lose everything if we migrate.
Our wood and valuables under the rubble are our only asset now," he adds.
Pakistan has been complaining to the international
community that the relief money promised at the Donors Conference on November
19 has not arrived.
"The government of Pakistan has launched
an emergency relief operation called 'Winter Race'. It includes provision
of transitional shelter of corrugated galvanised iron sheets and some non-food
items, particularly to the communities living above 5,000 feet in the quake-affected
area," says a senior UN official, on the condition of anonymity.
"This section of population comprises
roughly 40,000 households. Army spokesman Major General Shaukat Sultan stated
on Geo TV on Nov 29 that the army has so far built around 10,000 such shelters.
On the other hand, on November 27, the Economic Affairs Division rejected
a UN proposal to build 28,000 such shelters for the vulnerable population
above the snowline," the UN official adds.
"Reportedly, the EAD secretary stated
that the government has made a policy under which no transitional shelters
will be built. Only permanent shelters will be encouraged. For this, Rs 25,000
per household has already been distributed and another Rs 150,000 will be
given soon. He said the army is recovering the cost of shelters being built
by it from the Rs 25,000 given to the affected people. Field commanders denied
this when contacted."
It must be noted that even if one assumes
that Rs 25,000 is adequate for building shelters, it is impossible to construct
anything during the winter in the upper reaches, where the market is not functioning.
This is especially hard on the widows, orphans,
elderly and the disabled. The question begging to be asked is: Why is the
EAD undermining the UN effort?
