PESHAWAR, Oct 14: The Society for the Protection of the Right of the Child (Sparc) has said that protection of children, especially those who have lost their parents, must be an important part of the government’s emergency response.

The government should take responsibility for establishing (either by itself or through reliable civil society partners) and monitoring shelters and programmes to house parentless children until they could be reunited with their extended family members or placed in adoptive homes where they could be monitored, said a press release issued by Sparc.

Both the federal and provincial governments should take a responsible leadership role and mobilize its resources to coordinate rescue and relief operations in far-flung areas of the NWFP and Azad Jammu and Kashmir.

Access roads to the villages on the mountains have been damaged and rescuers have yet to reach there. The government agencies have not reached there, and though the army was moving in, it was presently only establishing its camps and lining people in queues.

Sparc’s team in Balakot reported that the United Arab Emirates rescue team left the area on Wednesday because they felt that there was no back-up or support from the government. They did not have stock of diesel, Sparc said, adding that it was simply ridiculous that the government was unable to coordinate the efforts made by foreign rescuers.

The NWFP chief minister, provincial ministers and federal ministers should have been there to monitor and coordinate the relief and rescue work and to assure people that the government was with them in the hour of need.

It was unbelievable that the ministers who belonged to the areas and were present there during the local body polls had only made aerial visits.

The Sparc team feared that in the absence of coordination between the government, NGOs and corporate sector tons of supplies may remain unutilized.

The team said that bundles of clothes were lying unused in Balakot, but actually cooking stoves, torches, sleeping bags, food stuff and medicines were required. Though juices and biscuits were widely available, people needed proper food. No one was providing tents because the market has run out supply. At least 1,000 to 2,000 tents were desperately needed in Balakot.

The team in Balakot said that thousands were feared dead in 10 union councils of the Balakot tehsil and bodies were still under the debris of the devastated structures.

The shortage of clean drinking water and sanitation facilities along with low immunization coverage poses a risk of epidemic and children were especially vulnerable.

The provincial government should respond to the emergency, instead of only looking towards the federal government. It should at least organize volunteers to recover bodies, particularly from schools, and bury them.