PESHAWAR, Feb 20: Protests against blasphemous cartoons are adversely affecting relief and rehabilitation activities in the quake-affected region of the NWFP, health officials told Dawn on Monday.

“Representatives and workers associated with more than 20 relief and rehabilitation organisations have curtailed their activities, apparently because of the anti-cartoon demonstrations,” the officials said.

They said that some of the organisations had asked their staff to relocate to Islamabad. They said most of the organisations working in Balakot, Battagram, Abbottabad, Mansehra and Shangla had already left for Islamabad after temporarily closing down their activities.

A representative of one of the relief agencies said that they had been directed by their headquarters to curtail or close down their activities and run for protection.

These organisations included UN agencies, International Committee of the Red Cross, Australian Aid International, Swiss Development Corporation, German Action Aid, Oxfam, GTZ, he said.

Officials said that relief activities had already suffered a setback after medical teams from Iran, China and the United Arab Emirate wrapped up their activities.

A government offcial said that the Iraniaan team had handed over 12 ambulances to Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences, Islamabad, after wrapping up their work in Hazara division.

He said that it was the right of the NWFP health department to retain those ambulances while medical teams from Cuba, Saudi Arabia and the United States would also wrap up their activities by March 31.

“These agencies, which have fully-fledged hospitals in Hazara division, are in the process of leaving”, he said.

He said that the provincial health department should take up the issue of retaining these hospitals with representatives of these countries.

He said that the local staff of relief organisations was still busy in relief work, but their activities had suffered a marked decline after shifting of top officials of these organisations.

Officials at the provincial health secretariat, however, said that they had prepared an inventory of the facilities established by the international relief organisations and would take over these facilities as and when these organisations left.