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| September 7, 2005 | Wednesday | Sha’aban 2, 1426 |
Flood-hit families seek help from federal govt
ISLAMABAD, Sept 6: At least 60 homeless families displaced by floods in the Brep village of Chitral district, who have been living in camps in a desert for nearly two months, have urged the federal government to rehabilitate them before winter sets in.
Talking to Dawn on the phone, the flood-affected people said they have lost their agricultural land and all their belongings when intermittent floods struck the village in June-July and buried half of its settlement under mud and rocks.
One middle school and two primary schools were also destroyed.
They criticized the provincial government for its failure to provide them assistance when it was urgently needed. “When the floods wrecked havoc in the village we were told to shift to tents at the Khotanlasht desert, so that we could be provided assistance under one roof and be rehabilitated. However, later nobody came to our rescue,” they complained.
They said President Pervez Musharraf during the Shandur festival on July 9 had announced Rs30 million funds for the flood-affected people of the district, but they were not provided any substantial financial assistance for their rehabilitation.
They accused the provincial government of adopting a discriminatory attitude against them in distribution of relief funds.
Apart from the property of at least 140 families being destructed, the floods also washed away a large number of canals, cutting off the water supply to standing crops and orchards in other parts of the village.
The education department could not make timely arrangements for continuing the classes of at least 300 students of the destroyed schools for over one month.
Finally, tents were provided for the children of the middle school while those belonging to the primary schools were shifted to other institutions.
An official in the district education department told Dawn that the construction of new buildings for the schools depended on availability of funds from the provincial government.
He said there was no plan to construct the buildings in the near future as it would be taken up in the annual development programme (ADB).
The people said the NWFP minister for agriculture and livestock along with the MNA and MPA of the area distributed a total of Rs420,000 among the affected families. However, the people termed the relief amount a peanut and said they needed continued government support for supply of food and construction of houses.
A visit to the camp by this correspondent showed that the displaced people were living under squalid conditions without any basic necessities like food, water and sanitation.
They said the people residing in nearby villages had provided them with daily-use items and food and were also helping them with the construction of their houses.
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