PESHAWAR: The internally displaced persons from North Waziristan Agency on Monday complained the political crisis triggered by the PTI and PAT sit-ins in Islamabad had shifted the attention of the federal and provincial governments away from their misery.They also said they were in distress due to the denial of financial assistance by the government for over two months.

The IDPs had gathered in a ‘roundtable conference’ organised by the National Humanitarian Network, an umbrella of various NGOs, to discuss the plight of around half million displaced persons from northwestern tribal region.

Qaumi Committee for IDPs of North Waziristan Agency president Nisar Ali Dawar said it seemed the federal and provincial governments had shifted their attention from the relief of IDPs to the resolution of the current political crisis caused by Islamabad sit-ins as well as the situation arisen out of floods in Punjab.

He said IDPs were getting goods, including food, but the distribution of cash assistance had been suspended for two months.

Displaced people complain of being denied financial assistance

Dawar said the federal government had announced payment of Rs12,000 to every displaced family on a monthly basis, while the Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa governments had also announced they would give IDPs Rs7,000 and Rs3,000 every month, respectively but the displaced persons hadn’t been paid money since July.

Pervez Khan of the Provincial Disaster Management Authority said IDPs would receive cash grant within one week.

He said the federal, Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa governments were release the money shortly for distribution among registered IDPs.

Official sources told Dawn that the provincial government couldn’t release funds for IDPs as the chief minister and his key cabinet members had been away for three weeks due to participation in the PTI sit-in in Islamabad.

“Apparently the PTI sit-in is more important for Chief Minister Pervez Khattak and his cabinet than administering the province,” said a provincial official, who deals with the matters relating to IDPs.

The official said the prolonged absence of the chief minister from the province had badly affected the government business.

He said the federal government, too, had withheld payment of cash assistance to IDPs.

He said the Fata Disaster Management Authority recently requested the federal government to release Rs1.5 billion to it for distribution to displaced families.

After the ‘roundtable conference’ ended, the National Humanitarian Network issued a statement to the media complaining lack of coordination among government institutions and poor registration system had increased the misery of hundreds of thousands of IDPs from North Waziristan.

It said poor performance of the National Database Registration Authority and indifferent attitude of the government functionaries had multiplied the agony of IDPs.

According to the release, the speakers at the event highlighted the issues of the IDPs, who had fled North Waziristan due to the launch of a military operation against militants there in June.

The speakers said as a result of military operation, over one million people had been displaced from the agency.

They said the government had ordered the launch of military operation without making any tangible plan for the relief of IDPs.

Representatives of various organisations, including Provincial Disasters Management Authority, OCHA and Temporary Dislocated Persons and Qaumi Committee for IDPs, participated in the conference.

The representative of the PDMA told the conference that the authority was doing its prime job of coordinating among all relevant organisations. He said the number of IDPs was far more than what the ODMA had expected.

Provincial coordinator of the NHN, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Mohammad Hamad called for close coordination among organisations dealing in displacement-related matters.

He complained the international media had not given proper attention to the problems of IDPs.

Other participants highlighted the problems facing around 0.3 million displaced women and 0.4 million displaced children.

They said it was the first time that such a large number of women had left their homes.

Published in Dawn, September 09th, 2014