MANSEHRA, May 12: The United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) on Thursday inaugurated 16 newly-constructed schools, nine of them for girls, in the earthquake-hit districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

In this connection, a ceremony was held here at the government primary school in Behali area where the Unicef chief field coordinator Alhaji Bah handed over the keys to headmasters of the new schools. These schools were built at a cost of $1.6 million.

Provincial food minister Shuja Salim, Erra coordinator Fazalur Rehman and Perra director general Kifayatullah were also present on the occasion.

“I am pleased to see that life is coming to normalcy in areas hit by October 8, 2005 earthquake,” said Mr Bah. He said that though nobody could bring back the lives of 17,000 students and 900 teachers who perished in the tragedy, the international community and local organisations could provide better education facilities to the student survivors.

Mr Bah said that the Unicef would rebuild 410 schools in the Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and so far 284 had been handed over to the respective governments after reconstruction. He said that reconstruction work on 126 remaining schools would be completed by 2012 end.

Mr Salim regretted that students of government girl's degree college were still getting education in tents and asked the Earthquake Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Authority (Erra) to reconstruct the college building or leave it to the provincial government.

PASSPORTS FOUND:

Police found 145 passports in a parcel lying on the road near local wagon stand, which apparently fell from a consignment of a courier service here on Thursday. “We have seized 145 passports of people of Kohistan and Battagram from the suspicious parcel and initiated an inquiry,” Ijaz Ahmad, DSP Mansehra, told reporters.

He said that following information a police team reached the spot and took the parcel into custody. He said that people were hesitant to touch the parcel due to fear that it might contain explosives.—Correspondent