PESHAWAR, 21 May 2009 (IRIN): Whilst a huge numbers of people are continuing to flee from Swat Valley and other conflict-hit areas in North West Frontier Province (NWFP), a few are heading back in the other direction to tend to their crops.
– We just left our house and animals as they were and fled last week. But now we must try and get back and harvest the wheat crop which will rot in the fields if we don’t tend to it, said Hazir Gul, 50, a farmer from a village near Ambala in Buner District.
– The wheat crop is the main source of livelihood for my family. It provides the ‘atta’ [wheat flour] we eat as well. I can’t afford to have it go to waste or my family will go hungry, Gul told IRIN.
Adnan Khan, a spokesman for the NWFP government’s Emergency Response Unit, said:- Hundreds of families are now going back to Buner, and a few places in Swat.
Provincial Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain said the number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) “could exceed 2,5 million”, and Ron Redmond, a spokesman for the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in Geneva, has said the number of those who have fled their homes since August 2008 “exceeds the two million mark”. The figure includes 1,45 million displaced since 2 May, when fresh fighting broke out between militants and government forces.
Rashid Khalikov, director of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in New York, has described the situation as “one of the worst displacement crises”, while appealing for more funds.
But in Swat and other areas the fighting could continue. The NWFP information minister has said his government wanted to “safely pull stranded people out of the conflict zone”. This would mean many could be displaced for an indefinite period.
Læs hele artiklen: www.irinnews.org
