Mountain experts deliver food to remote communities

Amid the steep, snow-clad slopes, small teams of mountain experts equipped with backpacks, anoraks and trekking gear, make their way along the footpaths towards isolated communities of earthquake survivors that desperately await them. The teams, each comprising 15 members, are part of a World Food Programme (WFP) effort to ensure aid and food supplies continue to reach people still in high, inaccessible mountain areas and likely to remain there through the coming winter months. Assembled on an initiative from well-known Pakistani film maker Nisar Malik, the teams are proving invaluable in taking aid to people located off the main roads in inaccessible valleys, such as those of the picturesque Kaghan Valley, 150 km from the capital, Islamabad. There are still people in these mountains who have received little or no help at all, still cut off from road networks. "Our house fell on 8 October. Fortunately, none of us was injured, but we are freezing to death and almost starving. We have been surviving on what corn we have in our fields, assembled what we could of our house from the rubble and have killed some of the livestock to feed the children," Aimer Rehman, 35, told IRIN. Aimer lives with his wife, and three children aged under 12, in a tiny hamlet of some 10 houses, 4 km from Kaghan, a town of 10,500 people. Aimer's house, like those of his neighbours, perches atop steep hills, and as in many other parts of the Kaghan Valley, is accessible only on foot. WFP believes that relief efforts must focus on people located in areas that cannot be accessed by road. The agency’s executive director, James Morris, said at the weekend that up to 400,000 people were located in areas of North West Frontier Province (NWFP) and Pakistan-administered Kashmir that could only be reached by air through the winter. WFP has also estimated 6,000 mt of food a month was required to help these people through the winter, and has called for a sustained donor effort to ensure this requirement can be met. The teams of mountain experts assembled by Malik are crucial to the aid effort in terrain such as that of the Kaghan Valley. "I've spent a lot of time up there, and realised that what was most urgently needed were teams with a real knowledge of how mountain people live, their survival mechanisms and their habits," Malik said. The idea of the teams, made up of highly skilled, well-equipped mountain guides, appealed to WFP, which has been using them since mid-November in its aid efforts in the Kaghan area, and also in surrounding locations where accessibility is an issue. This includes the Allai area and other narrow valleys located among the Himalayan foothills, which have already received one foot of snow, making ground conditions extremely difficult. More snow and rain is almost certain to fall over the coming days and weeks. The mountain experts are using helicopters to reach places in the valleys where the choppers can land, and then making their way to isolated communities on foot. They are also attempting to organise local people in the construction of more helipads, preparing for the time ahead when roads will no longer be usable, advising people on how to most effectively utilise aid delivered to them and how to receive aid dropped by helicopters that may be unable to land. Over the previous weeks, aerial aid drops have been hampered by the fact that people often assemble right under a hovering chopper, making it impossible to provide relief items to them for fear of causing injury or even death. While aid agencies in centres such as Balakot, Mansehra and other locations south of Kaghan have reported a thin trickle of people coming down from the valleys, many are still opting to stay close to their homes. Those who have decided to come down are being brought to camps in Balakot and other areas by military helicopter. However, all relief agencies are now aware that a large number of victims will not relocate themselves or their families, and must be provided with help through the winter. "The conditions there are very tough. Because of the snow and the land slides caused by wet weather even on footpaths, it is difficult to get there," said volunteer Abbas Ali, 25, from Abbotabad. As such, Abbas agrees the mountain experts may prove the most crucial link in the relief effort at this stage, with almost all agencies involved in the operation focusing on how to ensure supply lines are not cut off as winter descends. WFP has said that the teams have already surveyed many hard to reach locations, and done a head count of people likely to remain there over the coming months. Such counts continue to be carried out in other locations, with WFP warning that, as ground conditions worsen, there will be total reliance on choppers to deliver help. Without such help, people could be left isolated for weeks or even months. A prospect those on the ground are clearly fearful of. Kareem Khan, 54, in Kaghan told IRIN: "We are used to snow and the tough conditions. We do not feel the cold because we are accustomed to walking all day dressed just in a cotton shirt. But we need food to keep alive, and with the crops damaged this year, our only hope is the relief agencies on whom we depend for help."