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| November 23, 2005 | Wednesday | Shawwal 20, 1426 |
Woes of Pindi tent village inmates
RAWALPINDI, Nov 22: The quake survivors, living in Pindi’s tent villages, are facing several problems like food, sanitation and shelter. Unalike in Islamabad where NGOs and other charitable organizations are taking care of quake survivors, the performance of the NGOs in Pindi relief camps is restricted to just display of banners. The helpless survivors live in torn out tents provided by some relief agencies, which cannot protect them from the shivering cold.
Over 400 quake survivors, living in 45 tents in Gharibabad, have not had any assistance from any NGO. The camp is operated by a local representative Ch Afzal who, according to the inmates of the camp, has got fund from a UK-based charity organization for providing shelter to the quake victims.
According to the inmates, for the last one week they have been taking no other meal except for rice. “NGOs were reluctant to offer services in this remote area as here they would not be able to get the kind of publicity they get in Islamabad,” Sajjad Hussain, belonging to Muzaffarabad told this reporter.
He said the local influentials have restricted the quake survivors from talking to mediapersons so that, what he said, their misappropriation should not leak out to the press as they had received millions of funds from international aid agencies in the name of the earthquake. “Sometimes the representatives of the agencies that have given the funds visit our camps and inquired about the relief operation but we cannot complain following the instruction of our bosses,” another inmate of the camp told Dawn.
Similarly, an international NGO has set up a camp for about 200 survivors in Wilayat Colony, but there are no workers to monitor the relief activities over there. The tents erected there are just displaying large banners of the NGO.
According to the quake survivors, there were many tented villages in different towns of Rawalpindi but now it has been vanished because of inadequate arrangements by the NGOs.
Meanwhile, a large number of quake affected people was seen near the office of the city district nazim demanding the compensation they were assured of. They were carrying their identity cards of the quake-ravaged areas.
But they complained that the officials were not taking their documents. Some of the quake survivors were seen exchanging hot words with the officials of the district administration.
District Nazim Raja Javed Ikhlas was not present at his office and according to his personal secretary he had left for Lahore to attend the NIPA conference. He said the quake victims had been compensated for their losses. And the people seen outside the office were not the quake victims, he said.
He pointed out that they were holding two identity cards while in reality they are the residents of Rawalpindi.
Meanwhile, earthquake victims living in Gharibabad relief camp, who were discharged from hospitals, are not getting proper follow-up treatment.
Abdul Mateen, 24, told Dawn on Monday that he was discharged from Al-Shifa Hospital despite the fact that he still required treatment. He said neither he had access to a doctor in the tent nor did he have medicines to get relief from the pain in his legs.
“I was severely injured in the earthquake and after treatment proper food is needed for my quick recovery,” Mr Mateen said, adding that he had no money to buy anything including medicines.
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