Landless quake survivors reluctant to return

With emergency relief operations phasing out in earthquake-devastated areas of northern Pakistan, many survivors living in camps in Muzaffarabad, capital of Pakistani-administered Kashmir, who lost their homes and land, are uncertain about how they will cope. “We do not want to go back. We have neither home nor land to return to. The quake destroyed our house, while the subsequent landslides took away the small plot of land that we had,” Hussein, 22, from the village of Sandogh, some 70 km northeast of Muzaffarabad, said. Hussein and his extended family of seven people are living in the Bela Noor Shah Neelum Park camp in Muzaffarabad. The camp houses survivors displaced by the October earthquake that ripped through Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province (NWFP) and Pakistani-administered Kashmir. More than 80,000 were killed and over 3 million were left homeless by the disaster. There are about 120 families living in the camp on the bank of the Neelum River in squalid conditions. Despite this, more than 80 families in the camp are reluctant to return, mainly due to a lack of land to rebuild on and farm. The situation is no different in the New University camp in the Chellah Bandi area of Muzaffarabad, a temporary shelter for some 460 families, of whom around 200 families are from Neelum Valley. “Most of us do not want to go back because we do not have land, only some of us have it. Even if we wanted to return, there is no place to go to,” Iftikhar Khan, a community leader of survivors from Neelum Vally living in the camp, said. Muhammad Daud from Pakistan’s National Volunteer Movement (NVM) based in the New University camp, said that the return of Internally Displaced People (IDPs) to places without sufficient land was problematic. “It is an issue for some IDPs who have no land,” he said. “It is up to the government to arrange things for us. If the authorities give us land to rebuild our houses and lives we will definitely go,” Ahmad, 35, another camp resident from Neelum Valley, said. Other quake survivors are equally reluctant to leave the camps that have helped them survive the winter. “I cannot go back to my home village. The earthquake killed my husband and I am left with two children to look after. Our house is gone and I do not have any way to survive,” Fatima, a young quake widow in her 20s, said. The mountainous terrain and poor soil means land for building and cultivation has always been at a premium in the region. The average plot size in the area is said to be just 1.4 ha, only half of which is under cultivation. But subsistence agriculture is critical to most people in the region – where it makes up nearly half the household income. Officials from the government-run Camp Management Organisation (CMO), administering tented facilities for IDPs, explained that 31 March would signal the start of returns from relief camps and that residents would not be simply expected to fend for themselves from that date. “We are not pushing anybody to go. The return will be voluntary. We are conducting a survey on vulnerable groups, including landless people, woman-headed households, widows and people with special needs. They will be accommodated here in a camp or camps [in Muzaffarabad],” Shehla Waqar from CMO said.