MUZAFFARABAD, Jan 4: Free housing, electricity and medical care means little to the refugees who have fled their homes in the occupied Kashmir for Pakistan.

The sole wish of 750 refugees in the Manak Payyan No 1 camp, a few kilometres (km) outside of Muzaffarabad, Azad Kashmir, is to return to their homes.

Ghulam Hassan, a 30-year-old teacher, had fled the Kupwara district, Srinagar, with his family in 1990, a year after militant separatists began fighting to break free from New Delhi’s rule.

“Every refugee wants to return their homeland if India will allow Kashmir the right to self determination. We will wait until it happens.”

About 18,000 people have fled Indian Kashmir since 1989, local government figures showed. Some are living in 15 camps set up for them by Pakistan. While others lucky enough to have relatives in the Pakistani zone have moved in with them.

Many in the Manak Payyan camp tell of harassment, arrest and torture at the hands of security forces in the occupied Kashmir. India, however, claims it is carrying out counter-insurgency operations against ‘terrorist’ groups and those harbouring them.

Hussan said he had been arrested many times before he decided to flee — a decision which ensured his safety but separated him and other family members from their relatives.

“My relatives in the occupied Kashmir can not contact us. I have not spoken with them or seen them for 12 years. When I write letters they sometimes don’t arrive there,” he said.

Others speak of the sense of dislocation and frustration.

Imtiaz Ahmed Lone, 22-year-old, studying for a science degree at a local college is grateful to the government for providing him with accommodation, but said he felt like a second class citizen.

“We can only live in Azad (free) Kashmir. We cannot live in the rest of Pakistan because we have no identification card except the refugee card”, he added. Infectious diseases such as dysentery and dermatitis are common, exacerbated by the squalid sanitation systems.

But Gulzar Saddiqi, a pharmacist working in the camp’s medical centre, said he treated more people for depression than any other disease.

“This is a particular problem, especially among the women whose relatives have been killed or those who have left behind family in Indian Kashmir,” he said.

Malakzadi lives with her seven children in one of the identical small stone houses that make up the camp.

Inside there is a bed, a gas stove, and several pots and pans — all the family’s worldly possessions.

The stone floor is covered by a tattered rug, while a sheet hangs from the ceiling to provide some relief from the winter nights.

“It is very difficult to bring up children here. It is dirty, the facilities are not enough and it gets very cold,” she said. “Life used to be much better but now all we have is this.”—AFP