Tackling the IDPs Crisis

The sig­nif­i­cance of the mass exo­dus of near­ly a mil­lion peo­ple (Inter­nal­ly dis­placed per­sons or IDPs) from North Waziris­tan in the wake of the mil­i­tary oper­a­tion, with­out any vis­i­ble plan for their relief and reha­bil­i­ta­tion, seems to have escaped the pol­i­cy mak­ers. Nei­ther the Fed­er­al or Provin­cial gov­ern­ments of Khy­ber Pakhtunkhwa (KPk), nor the Army with mas­sive resources at its dis­pos­al, was ready for the mass exo­dus. There was a lack of any pri­or plans and prepa­ra­tions to man­age this cri­sis in a well-coor­di­nat­ed man­ner.

Even though the FATA Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Author­i­ty (FDMA) and the Army have been attempt­ing to bring their efforts in lock­step, there is no cen­tral coor­di­na­tion mech­a­nism and these efforts remain frag­ment­ed. The FDMA remains un-pre­pared, scant­i­ly staffed and resource-starved, unable to take the respon­si­bil­i­ty of man­ag­ing a relief exer­cise of this mag­ni­tude. The Army is also doing this activ­i­ty in its own man­ner, but, obvi­ous­ly, is more focused towards the oper­a­tion itself.

The IDP sit­u­a­tion in the cur­rent case is an unusu­al one. The IDPs are not in cen­tral­ly estab­lished camps where they can be eas­i­ly reached. The only camp that has been set up is at Bakkakhel, lacks basic facil­i­ties and hous­es just 28 fam­i­lies ⁱ.

That in itself puts a ques­tion mark on the seri­ous­ness of the author­i­ties to deal with this chal­lenge. A major­i­ty of the IDPs have been accom­mo­dat­ed by host fam­i­lies, or housed in var­i­ous emp­ty build­ings, schools, col­leges, go-downs, deserted/destroyed struc­tures, hujras, etc. spread over most of south­ern KPk. Some of the rea­sons for this are the lack of basic facil­i­ties in the camp, extreme­ly harsh weath­er con­di­tions and cul­tur­al issues. Ban­nu, a city of one mil­lion, is now host­ing approx­i­mate­ly half a mil­lion addi­tion­al peo­ple. Such a sit­u­a­tion makes the relief effort extreme­ly dif­fi­cult and demand inno­v­a­tive approach­es since the tra­di­tion­al approach­es designed to reach IDPs who are cen­tral­ly locat­ed, will not work.

Out of approx­i­mate­ly 800,000 IDPs, rough­ly 60–65% are in Ban­nu, 20–25% in sur­round­ing dis­tricts like FR Ban­nu, Lak­ki Mar­wat, Karak, Kohat, and the neigh­bor­ing Kur­ram agency etc. and 10% are spread out in dif­fer­ent parts of KPk province. Some fam­i­lies have also moved out to Islam­abad, Rawalpin­di and Karachi ⁱⁱ. Reg­is­tra­tion, a gar­gan­tu­an task giv­en the 0.8 mil­lion peo­ple need­ed to be reg­is­tered, has now been start­ed in Ban­nu, how­ev­er, with many of the IDPs scat­tered at dif­fer­ent places, reg­is­tra­tion has become a very com­plex issue. The author­i­ties are reluc­tant to start reg­is­tra­tion in oth­er cities for risk of mass move­ment towards set­tled areas which the gov­ern­ment does not desire. At the same time, the IDPs scat­tered all over can­not get the relief as they are not duly reg­is­tered or are locat­ed far away from the relief dis­tri­b­u­tion points. Anoth­er bot­tle­neck is the pre­req­ui­site of CNIC card for reg­is­tra­tion. Due to remote­ness, decades’ long con­flict and cul­tur­al rea­sons, many peo­ple, par­tic­u­lar­ly women, have no CNICs.

There are main­ly three relief dis­tri­b­u­tion hubs for dis­tri­b­u­tion of rations, which are locat­ed at Ban­nu, Lak­ki Mar­wat and D.I. Khan where IDPs have to come to get relief. Some peo­ple find pro­hib­i­tive the cost of trav­el­ing from far-off areas to get a few ration items. Oth­ers are unaware of the pro­ce­dures, loca­tions and the terms and con­di­tions result­ing in undue rush and con­ges­tion.

Accord­ing to some reports, some 74% of the IDPS are women and chil­dren who are the most vul­ner­a­ble ⁱⁱⁱ. Spe­cial focus on the nutri­tion needs of the chil­dren is of utmost impor­tance. Med­ical camps and avail­abil­i­ty of lady doc­tors is anoth­er basic need, as many women who need med­ical help are liv­ing in com­mu­ni­ties where reach­ing out to them is very dif­fi­cult. Mass aware­ness through inno­v­a­tive means is need of the day. FM radio and oth­er local media chan­nels can be effec­tive­ly used to keep the com­mu­ni­ties informed and give aware­ness about impor­tant issues like reg­is­tra­tion, med­ical camps, how to tack­le dif­fer­ent com­mu­ni­ty prob­lems, how to avoid com­mon dis­eases beside ways to pro­tect the envi­ron­ment, and so forth.

It is extreme­ly dif­fi­cult to pro­vide com­mu­ni­ty util­i­ties such as water, elec­tric­i­ty, health and san­i­ta­tion facil­i­ties in the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion to the IDPs. The large num­ber of IDPs has put seri­ous strain on com­mu­ni­ty facil­i­ties in Ban­nu and sur­round­ing towns. These towns and vil­lages need to be helped with addi­tion­al water fil­tra­tion plants, com­mu­ni­ty wash­rooms, improv­ing water and san­i­ta­tion, pro­vi­sion of elec­tric­i­ty and build­ing of access roads. With lit­tle pos­si­bil­i­ty of the IDPs mov­ing back in the near future, there is a dire need to build up the capac­i­ties of towns like Ban­nu, Lak­ki Mar­wat, Sarai Norang, Domel, and oth­er large vil­lages host­ing the IDPs.

Anoth­er seri­ous issue is the future of the chil­dren and youth. Most of the schools and col­lege build­ings in the host areas have been occu­pied by IDPs. Soon after the sum­mer break, these com­mu­ni­ties will have to face anoth­er dis­place­ment. This will affect the edu­ca­tion of IDP chil­dren, as well as host com­mu­ni­ties. The need is to build prop­er struc­tures for their shel­ter. Simul­ta­ne­ous­ly, capac­i­ty of local schools needs be enhanced and nec­es­sary mea­sures tak­en for all the school-going chil­dren. There is a fear that most of these youth land­ing in madras­sas, or with jiha­di out­fits, if no alter­na­tive mech­a­nisms to engage them are ini­ti­at­ed in time. Sim­i­lar­ly, tem­po­rary voca­tion­al schools and train­ing cen­ters could also be intro­duced for the women and young girls.

The imme­di­ate focus of the state insti­tu­tions should be towards relief and reha­bil­i­ta­tion. If this is mis­man­aged – as, it appears, is hap­pen­ing – it might in fact cre­ate more prob­lems, and may even poten­tial­ly change the nature of this whole con­flict, with emer­gence of more vio­lent, per­haps even anti-state, groups on account of pent-up frus­tra­tion.

i. Tele­phone Con­ver­sa­tion with Direc­tor FDMA at Ban­nu, Mr Far­man. dat­ed 4 July, 2014. Also con­firmed from IDPs and vol­un­teers on ground.

ii. North Waziris­tan Update, dat­ed 6 July 2014, Avail­able at FDMA web­site. Can be accessed , http://fdma.gov.pk/index.php/news-a-events/144-north-waziristan-updates

iii. Ibid. Also See “Glob­al Peace Pio­neers’ IDPs Relief and Reha­bil­i­ta­tion Fund” Avail­able at, http://globalpeace.net.pk/files/File/Flash%20Appeal%20for%20Rehabilitation%20and%20Support%20for%20IDPs%20of%20North%20Waziristan%20-%20GPP.pdf