October 09, 2007	Tuesday	Ramazan 26, 1428

PESHAWAR, Oct 8: Two years after the earthquake that devastated parts of the NWFP and Azad Kashmir, it is obvious that the pace of rehabilitation of survivors is slow, according to a non-governmental organisation.

A press release issued by the Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child (Sparc), to commemorate the second anniversary of the earthquake, stated that children’s dependence on Sparc’s fun centres showed that “things have not moved as fast as they should have”.

The Sparc’s executive director, Qindeel Shujaat, said that at the beginning of the third winter following the calamity, thousands of families were living in tents, which proved that the government’s promise of providing homes to the survivors was yet to become a reality.

He said that infrastructure in the affected areas would take several years to fully recover from the disaster. The same stood for the education systems of the quake-hit areas.

Asiya Arif, the NGO’s promotion officer, said: “With the packing up of temporary health facilities, the health ministry faces the challenge of providing the much-needed medical facilities to the survivors. Many disabled children are still waiting for prosthetics,” she remarked.

She said the ban on adoption needed to be lifted and orphaned children should be taken care of by the community.—PPI