Over 90,000 quake survivors return from relief camps

Since the start of the return process on 10 March, more than 90,000 survivors of the devastating Pakistan earthquake have gone home to rebuild their lives, relief officials said on Thursday. This has resulted in the closure of 49 relief camps in North West Frontier Province (NWFP) and Pakistani-administered Kashmir to date. “The return process continues to gather pace. The internally displaced people are keen on returning to their home villages and overall the process can be assessed as voluntary in nature. Even before camp closures started on 10 March, camp dwellers were returning on their own,” Fatma Bassiouni, a spokeswoman at the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), said in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad. More than 80,000 people were killed and another 3.5 million rendered homeless after a massive 7.6 magnitude earthquake ripped through northern Pakistan in early October last year, just weeks before the start of the harsh Himalayan winter, creating one of the most challenging humanitarian operations ever. Over 2 million quake survivors were left with no option but to live in flimsy tents in relief camps or crude shelters patched together from ruined homes. Close to 300,000 quake survivors were living in tented camps during the winter season in over 600 settlements across the quake zone, including more than 150 officially organised settlements with a cluster of 50 or more tents, according to the Federal Relief Commission (FRC). The International Organization for Migration (IOM) has also been assisting the return process. According to the IOM, to date the agency has helped more than 5,600 quake-affected families wishing to leave temporary settlements to return home by providing them with medical screening and transportation. However, there are many more vulnerable people who are still unable to go home, Bassiouni said, such as those who have been orphaned, widowed or disabled as a result of the quake. Others have lost their land or have to be relocated, as in the case of people from the town of Balakot which lies on a major fault line. “It is extremely important that these vulnerable people continue to be assisted until more permanent solutions are found for them.” In NWFP, the relief authorities have set aside three camps, including two in Mansehra district, and one in Battagram district for residual groups of vulnerable people. In Pakistani-administered Kashmir, at least two camps located in Muzzaffarabad district have been designated for this purpose. Meanwhile, the office of the United Nations Resident Coordinator in Islamabad, along with Pakistan’s Earthquake Relief and Reconstruction Authority (ERRA), announced a '12-Month Action Plan for Early Recovery’ on 22 April, which aims to support the government through the transitional period between relief and recovery. As the decommissioning process begins, the UN refugee agency has also deployed its mobile technical teams into the camps to monitor the closure of camps and to ensure that all involved dismantle the structures and clear the sites in an environmentally sound manner, Bassiouni said.