LANDI KOTAL: The Fata Disaster Management Authority on Friday completed registration of 22,000 displaced families from Bara since the start of ‘Khyber One’ military operation there on October 16.

The relevant officials told Dawn said they had established three points in Jamrud, Peshawar and Orakzai Agency to list the fleeing families.

They said most displaced persons were members of Sipah, Malakdinkhel, Akkakhel and Kamarkhel tribes from Bara and Tirah valley.

The officials said of a total of 171,559 displaced persons, 91,744 were children and 40,454 women.

They said according to their previous data they had collected after the 2009 military operation, over 80 per cent of the new displaced families were already registered with the FDMA.

“We will reassess our data and compare it with previous record of the already registered families from Bara and Tirah valley. And after the exact number of new IDPs affected by the ‘Khyber One’ operation is known, the authority will devise an assistance package for them,” an official said.

Exercise done since start of military action in area a fortnight ago

Currently, the FDMA provides free transport or Rs2,500 cash for transportation to every family coming out of Bara via Batta Thall and Lala Kandaw in Jamrud along with one-time cooked food.

The exact number of new displaced families is not known, so FDMA does not force families to go to a particular destination.

“The decision of where to go and where to stay is entirely theirs,” the official said.

Most fleeing families, however, opted to stay with relatives and families in and around Peshawar, while some went to Jalozai.

The FDMA officials insisted families already registered with them regularly received their monthly food ration and other necessary assistance on monthly basis at five designated food distribution points near Peshawar and Pabbi in Nowshera district.

They said the families trying to re-register themselves would lose their ration card and would not be considered for assistance.

The officials said most registered families from Bara had gone back to their respective areas in the recent past despite the fact that security forces had not denotified those Bara localities.

According to the FDMA record, 103,207 families from both Bara and Tirah are still registered with FDMA and of them, 80,006 have been verified by Nadra. Of them, only 11,260 have gone back to Tirah in three repatriation phases since November last year.

FC SOLDIER KILLED: Suspected militants on Friday killed an FC solider from Jamrud after kidnapping him from a security checkpost in Orakzai Agency.

The body of Yaqeen Khan was brought to Bakerabad in Jamrud and handed over to relatives for burial.

The security forces arrested 75 suspects and seized a huge quantity of explosives during a search operation in different parts of Jamrud.

Also in Jamrud, unidentified gunmen snatched a kilogramme gold from two Afghan nationals. The two Afghans were traveling in a taxi to Afghanistan via Torkham border when the robbery took place.

The Kha Sara force registered a case and began investigation.

Published in Dawn, November 1st , 2014