July 05, 2007	Thursday	Jamadi-us-Sani 19, 1428

QUETTA, July 4: The Yousufzai Qaumi Tehrik and leaders of mine workers have criticised the government for not ensuring supply of food items through helicopters to 35,000 mine workers, women and children stranded in the Marwar coal mining area.

Speaking at a joint press conference here on Wednesday, Yousufzai Qaumi Tehrik chief Ishaq Khan Yousufzai and mine workers’ leader Sher Bahadur Khan Yousufzai said they had met the deputy relief commissioner, DCO of Quetta and other officials to provide relief to the marooned people, but their response was not encouraging.

They said the Marwar coal mining area was just 30km from the Quetta city, but the government was not paying attention to providing relief to the victims.

They said that on self-help basis, they had purchased 35 tons of food stuff on July 3 for the affected people, but it was difficult to transport the goods to Marwar because the road had been washed away by floods. However, they said, they were able to reach the river near Marwar where hundreds of workers came by foot from hilly areas to receive the goods.

They said they had another 50 tons of food items but sending it to the affected area was a problem. They urged the government to provide three bulldozers to repair the damaged bridge, which would resolve the transportation problem to some extent.

They criticised provincial officials, especially the relief commissioner and city district nazim, for ignoring the Marwar affected people.

They said officials were reluctant to provide a helicopter to transport the items to the affected people.

Asked about the situation in other coal mining areas in Mach, Aabegum, Souranj, Sharag and Harnai, they said that according to reports from the areas, the situation there was now better.