Displaced persons want go back to hometown in Pak tribal areas

Khalid Kheshgi

 

<?xml:namespace prefix = st1 />PESHAWAR: For an elderly woman from Bajaur, Kacha Garhi camp in the provincial metropolis is nothing more than a cursed abode as compared to her native Bajaur, which, she said, was blessed with lush green fields, providing them an honorable livelihood.

 

Waiting for relief items at the make-shift Kacha Garhi camp Peshawar, the aged woman, who declined to be named, is optimistic about returning of peace in the conflict-stricken Bajour Agency where her family has left cattle, standing crops of maize and grain-filled coppers at a time when the security forces and militants engaged in fierce clashes. “It is irony of fate that we, who were once generous to Afghan refugees during harvesting season, are now living like refugees in our own country,” said the woman, who claimed to own arable land and dozens of cows in Bajour Agency.

 

The Kacha Garhi camp was set up for Afghan refugees in 1980 and had housed more than 70,000 refugees until it was vacated and closed in 2007. But soon, it was reopened to the internally displaced people (IDPs), majority of them from Bajaur Agency, who were forced to leave their homes by the fighting between militants and security forces.

According to the UN agency for refugees, more than 12,800 people have been registered in four accessible camps. Kacha Garhi is one of them and is now home to more than 1000 families or some 6000 displaced people.

The UNHCR latest report says the number of displaced people in the NWFP was about 450,000, which could be reached to 600,000 within weeks.

In addition, UNHCR in collaboration with the NWFP government has registered more than 64,500 people inside 12 camps, while 245,000 people living outside of camps, majority of them living with their relatives or rented houses in Peshawar, Mardan, Nowshera and other cities of the province.

 

The NWFP Social Welfare Department has so far registered 44,752 families of IDPs (Internally Displaced Persons) living outside relief camps. Out of these displaced families 11,736 families belong to Swat district.

 

The displaced woman hoped that the day peace returns to her hometown Bajour, she alongwith dozens of families would rush to their houses as they hate to live like refugees and beggars. “We have no love for this wretched plains (Kacha Gahri camp) and are keen to go back in our lush green fields and mountains, full of grain and fruit,” she added.

 

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