PESHAWAR, April 28: In cooperation with the US Agency for International Development, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) has launched a campaign to provide relief to 3,500 families affected by recent rains and storms in the Frontier province.

Using trucks and donkeys, the IRC teams are working with local councils to supply rice, sugar, pulses, ghee and salt to the calamity-stricken families in the mountainous districts of Kohistan, Shangla and Lower Dir, says a press release issued here on Thursday.

According to it “torrential rains, floods, snowstorms and avalanches ravaged areas of the North West Frontier Province and Balochistan in February and March, left some 700 people dead, thousands homeless and more than 100,000 people stranded without access to food, medicine or fuel.

“The affected communities in the two provinces are among the poorest and most vulnerable in Pakistan and have shared their modest resources for over two and half decades with more than three million Afghan refugees.

“Its teams have visited different areas of Abbottabad, Battagram, Mansehra, Swat and five other severely impacted districts to deliver food, blankets, warm clothing and construction materials to 14,700 families.” —APP