Saturday, September 18, 2010

Pakistan: The Worsening IDP Crisis

Pakistan’s government and international actors must ensure those in flood-devastated conflict zones are urgently granted the assistance they need to survive and to rebuild lives, without the military dictating rehabilitation and reconstruction efforts.

The monsoon floods in Pakistan have caused massive destruction and turned a displacement crisis in the insecure western borderlands into a national disaster of mammoth proportions. When the floods hit, almost all those displaced from Malakand had returned home and were struggling to rebuild lives in a region where much of the infrastructure had been destroyed in fighting; 1.4 million more displaced from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) were living in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) province. The
disaster would have proved challenging under any circumstance. The fragile civilian government, already tackling an insurgency, and its institutions, neglected during nine years of military rule, lack the capacity and the means to provide sufficient food, shelter, health and sanitation
without international assistance. The Pakistan government and international actors should ensure those in the flood-devastated conflict zones are urgently granted the assistance they need to survive and to rebuild lives and livelihoods. If military objectives dictate rehabilitation and reconstruction efforts, a population exhausted by conflict could become a soft target for militants, making stability
in the northwest even more elusive.

To read full report, click this link: Pakistan: The Worsening IDP Crisis

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