Much has been written and discussed about the psychological condition of IDPs. The trauma of leaving home is very severe no matter how better they are taken care of later. The level of displacement is no doubt very large and still unaccounted for.
According to Kavita Shukla, Country Analyst, Switzerland based,Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre/ Norwegian Refugee Council, at the end of 2008, the number of IDPs internationally was around 26 million (this figure includes only around 500,000 IDPs from Pakistan as that was the number of displaced persons at that point). The biggest displacements at the end of 2008 were Sudan (with 4.9 million IDPs) and Colombia (up to 4.3 million). On this scale, taking into account the latest numbers from Pakistan, the country would have the third highest number of conflict-displaced persons in the world, which now stands above three million.
Recently I went to Mardan with an NGO, Alamgir Welfare Trust to assess the situation on ground. It was really astonishing to see as to what has been happening and being reported by the media. The main problem was that almost all the relief aid and media attention were going to the camps, with food distributed by the World Food Program, with health facilities available at their doorstep. But these people represented just a fraction of the total. A much larger, but mainly hidden, flood of refugees were living in schoolrooms, mosques, and private homes, where they were sheltered and fed by locals.
I asked a Swati man, Bakht Khan, in camp about the conditions in camps, he replied satisfactorily. He said "I have food to eat, I have clothes to wear but I want to go home". Conversely, the situation out side these camps is disturbing. People are living in camps established alongside roads without having any attention whatsoever let alone the matter of having any help.
The people from Swat, I met, were well-off and have good education level. They were using mobile phones and were travelling in cars. We were informed about a group of IDPs living in a labour colony in Sri Balor, Takhtbahai for distribution of relief goods from Trust, with the help of a local, Amir Khan, owner of a petrol pump on Malakand Road. Abdur Razzaq, the local chief of these 500 people come up with complete details about the people in that colony. He was well organised and co-ordinated the whole exercise effectively. This proves that if a proper crisis management exercise was carried out half of the miseries would have been reduced.
The streets of Mardan were full of aid groups announcing their presence and their help only to register themselves. The need for a comprehensive and coherent policy is what was required to deal with crises. NGOs, government agencies, international organisations are all working in different directions with little co-operation and co-ordination.
During interaction with those living on the streets or in camps, I found that people are against the Taliban, but also have little praise for the government either. The citizens of Mardan also questioned government's sincerity about flushing out militants and helping the IDPs. The national authority responsible for overcoming crisis, National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) was nowhere to be seen. It is about more than a month since the military operation started, but the crisis of IDPs is not yet overcome.
The role of international community is also not praiseworthy especially the US who is blamed for all this mess. Four years ago, when an earthquake struck the northern areas, the US forces used its tremendous logistical resources to ferry aid and shelter to the victims, and for a time the tarnished image of the United States gained a lustrous new sheen in Pakistan but not this time.
Since the operation started international aid agencies have been struggling to cope with the crisis. Oxfam's Humanitarian Director, Jane Cocking, has described this as the worst funding crisis the agency has faced for a major humanitarian emergency in over a decade.
Aid workers also fear that the onset of monsoon rains in July could stretch resources even further - increasing the risk of diarrhoea and malaria.
In passing I would like to commend the government for motorway network. It is really a treat for a Karachiite to travel on this. The shocks my car took from my office to home not even one percent of it the car took from Islamabad to Mardan or from Mardan to Peshawar journey. This system of maintenance and quality control shows that nothing is impossible if there is a will. The antipathy of these people towards militants will not last longer if proper actions are not taken.
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