30,000 displaced by operation reach Mardan

[Naveed Yaseen]

MARDAN: Around 30,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) have reached the district following military operations in Buner and Swat.

Divisional Commissioner Mohammad Khalid Umarzai on Wednesday said that a large number of IDPs from Buner and Swat preferred to stay with their relatives. He said five entry points were set up for the IDPs in various areas of Mardan and Swabi where they were registered and then sent to three relief camps i.e. two in Mardan and one in Swabi.

“We have two kinds of registrations: host registration and camp registration,” he said, adding that the registered IDPs in the camps were given shelter, food items and utensils while makeshift toilets were also constructed and the “host registered IDPs” were given food items only.

Umarzai deplored that only the provincial government was making rehabilitation efforts, while neither the federal government nor NGOs had reached the camps so far. He said thousands of families were arriving in Mardan and Swabi but the administration had no sufficient arrangements to manage these helpless IDPs in the camps.

Meanwhile, NWFP Senior Minister Bashir Ahmed Bilour, during his visit to the relief camps in Mardan, said the provincial government was trying its level best to serve their brethren. Despite limited resources and funds, the provincial government had issued Rs140 million for the IDPs. He disclosed that the federal government had also announced Rs500 million for the affected people of Malakand division, saying: “we need more than Rs5 billion.” He said combating terrorism was not the problem of Frontier province only but of the whole world.

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