January 14, 2006	Saturday	Zilhaj 13, 1426

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DANNA VILLAGE (Azad Kashmir), Jan 13: As winter piles up snow in the earthquake-affected mountainous areas, the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR has intensified its efforts to distribute warm clothing to vulnerable young earthquake survivors.

Children in Danna village, situated some 30km north of Muzaffarabad city, found sick and malnourished by a UNHCR community services staff on a recent visit received warm clothes this week.

“We realized during that visit that it would be extremely difficult for the children, many of them orphaned or disabled, to fight off the approaching harsh winter. On return we arranged for some warm clothes and are distributing these in the village,” said Catherine Harding, a UNHCR community services officer based in Muzaffarabad.

A UNHCR statement said its relief-laden vehicle narrowly escaped a landslide as it negotiated its way through the curved mountainous roads of Kashmir to the people of the ravaged Danna village who had been provided temporary shelter in UNHCR tents.

On arrival the UNHCR team was surrounded by children from all over the village.

Village elder Chaudhry Sadiq told the team that the relief was very welcome as “temperature falls below zero in the night and the chilly winds makes life very difficult for us”.

Anxiety was etched on the faces of the children as they huddled with their mothers or other relatives and watched boxes of warm clothes being unloaded and unpacked for distribution.

Six-year-old Sadia was first in the queue and got the first sweater which came out of the box.

“This will look beautiful on you, what do you think?” asked Catherine. All that Sadia could do to express her appreciation was to smile at the UNHCR officer and run back to her mother. Sadia lost her father in the quake and now she and her mother were living with her uncle’s family.

The smiles of the shivering children were warmer than the warm clothing given to them.

“Our village is just next to Muzaffarabad but last winter we remained cut off for almost a month because heavy snowfall and landslides had closed the road,” said Sadiq.

A difficult corridor through the mountains provided an alternative route but it meant walking through the snow for several hours to bring supplies. “Last week’s snow also blocked our roads for three days,” he said.

In its drive to winterize refugee camps in Muzaffarabad and the North West Frontier Province, the UNHCR has distributed 25,000 plastic sheets, 250,000 blankets and 17,000 mattresses to more than 100,000 people.

In the first phase, the agency distributed three blankets per person, two plastic sheets per tent and mattresses for sick women and children.

The statement said that UNHCR, which had responsibility for camp management within the UN team, was currently supporting the Pakistan government and non-governmental organizations in 139 earthquake relief camps, 26 of them planned and 113 spontaneous sites. Altogether, these camps were home to more than 137,000 people left homeless by the quake.

“The planned camps were set up with the collaboration of the local authorities and the Pakistan Army, but we also focused our attention on the spontaneous camps where conditions were congested and there were many health concerns that needed improvements,” said Morgan Morris, head of UNHCR operations in Muzaffarabad.

Morgan said UNHCR had proposed decongestion or relocation of some spontaneous camps to newly planned sites or sites that had the capacity to absorb a portion of the spontaneous camps population.

“Although we have covered all the spontaneous camps under our winterization drive, further improving the existing facilities in some of the spontaneous camps is next to impossible,” Morgan said.

“An example of such a camp causing concern is Bella Noor Shah. It has more than 3,000 people, tents pitched very close to each other and is located on the river bed. New latrines cannot be dug because the water level has risen and is now lying stagnant all around the camp.”

Biting, chilly winds started to blow on the mountain tops as the distribution of warm clothing came to an end in Danna village, a taste of the cold wave which Pakistan’s weather office had forecast for the quake-hit areas this week.

In the second phase of its winterization programme, the UNHCR was to distribute around 40,000 kerosene stoves to the earthquake survivors in the camp.

This distribution was being supplemented with the provision of fire-fighting equipment in the camps and a mass information campaign to inform the camp residents of fire risks and prevention.

The Pakistan government had expressed its preference for communal heating solutions in some locations to reduce the risk of fire.