LANDI KOTAL: Hundreds of displaced families from Loe Shalman have demanded of the authorities to conduct survey of their damaged houses along with immediate provision of food and non-food items to them.

Haji Said Qahar, an elder of Narai area near the Afghan border, told this scribe that more than 100 families of his village were directed to leave their homes in 2011 after an escalation in mortar shelling on the Pakistani territory from across the border.

He said that more families were asked to leave their houses in Ougda, Samsai and Sheen Pukh localities of Loe Shalman, situated close to his village, later in 2012 with a spike in the cross-border artillery shelling.

Haji Qahar said that some of the displaced families settled down with their relatives in comparatively safe place in Loe Shalman while the rest of them opted for living in tents and makeshift houses as Fata Disaster Management Authority (FDMA) and local political administration had not provided them any temporary residential facility.

Qalar Shah, another resident of the same locality, said that FDMA also deprived them of food and non-food items as the authority had not registered any of the displaced family.

He alleged that the ration was distributed among those families, who were neither displaced nor had incurred any losses due to the border situation but were recommended by the political administration.

Mr Shah said that most of their houses were either damaged by the mortar shells or bad weather conditions as those remained unoccupied for the last seven years without any maintenance.

He demanded of the FDMA and political administration to immediately conduct a survey of their damaged houses along with provision of food and non-food items to all the genuine displaced families.

He said that the affected families were also in dire need of financial assistance as they lost their agricultural lands and the livestock they had reared prior to their displacement and both were their sources of income.

Published in Dawn, February 8th, 2018