Pakistan's 'Invisible Refugees' Burden Cities

Pakistan's 'Invisible Refugees' Burden Cities

www.nytimes.com

Most fled suddenly, without cash or belongings, and many have limited access to the millions of dollars in international aid that has been flowing in.

“People aren’t noticing them,” said Michael McGrath, Pakistan director of Save the Children, an aid organization that has focused on refugees outside of camps. “Their needs are not being met.”

Their hardships have made time of the essence. Refugees said they left their homes because they believed that the government was serious about stopping the militants this time. The more time passes, the more good will is lost, and the more

(visit the link for the full news article)


Related News Links:
worldfocus.org

I just heard about this last night. There are two million people displaced as a result of the conflict with the taliban this year. Could you imagine evacuating your town with nothing and then being forgotten about. It has to be awful. I did a search here and was surprised to find nothing on it. So I figured I would post it here to get a little exposure.

www.nytimes.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Pakistani Refugee Crisis Poses Peril Amid Army Offensive, Extremists Are Filling Needs That the Government Can't

You read it right. The militants are taking care of the refugees. What does that do for the mindset of the younger ones?

Now, concern is growing that this latest wave of displacement will create a fresh crop of Pakistanis with grievances against the government and loyalty to groups that seek to undermine the state through violent insurgency. The government says it is aware of the peril, but it appears incapable of mustering the resources it needs to provide shelter, food, water and medicine to so many people. "If people are not looked after well, they tend to become extremists. It hasn't happened yet, but we're very conscious of it," said Farhatullah Babar, a spokesman for President Asif Ali Zardari. "It's a big task."

www.washingtonpost.com...

Unfamiliar with counterinsurgency operations, the army laid down withering artillery fire in the Buner district, quickly followed by more shelling in the scenic Swat Valley, Pakistan's premier tourist destination. Since then some 3 million refugees have fled towns and cities turned to rubble and are now huddling in makeshift shelters in 28 camps, where only one in five is under canvass in the broiling heat. One of the senior officials in charge of refugees, speaking not for attribution, said he expects the number to climb to 4 million, the largest exodus since partition from India created the state of Pakistan in 1947.

I can't believe these people are left with no help. The terrorists are basically recruiting them now. The count is now at three million refugees and it is expected to reach four million.

Taliban agents, posing as refugees, have already infiltrated the camps where they proselytize to radicalize those who lost their homes in Swat against the government. The head of the U.N. refugee relief operation in Pakistan and World Food Program personnel estimate burgeoning refugee needs for the next seven months at US$540 million. No sooner were U.N. personnel installed in Peshawar's only safe hotel for Westerners, the five-star Pearl Continental, than a VBIED – vehicle-borne improvised explosive device – crashed through the security gate at 10 p.m., fired at security guards, pulled up in front of the PC, as locals call the hotel, and detonated half a ton of explosives, turning an entire wing to rubble, killing 20 and injuring 70.

www.upiasia.com...

Do they use relief work as an opportunity to proselytize? "Yes, wherever we can, we ask people to become Muslims," he says. "They are impressed by our good work."

www.time.com...

Pregnant Pakistani Women Endangered By Refugee Crisis

At another camp, staff nurse Nazia says pregnant women ask her to persuade their husbands to let them leave their tents to give birth at the clinic. There are an estimated 70,000 pregnant women among the 2 million people recently uprooted by conflict in the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP). Every day more than 250 give birth, and as many as 40 face potentially life-threatening complications.

www.huffingtonpost.com...

reply to post by jackflap


It's outragous that they are doing this to those people. The manipulation of human beings just keeps getting sicker and sicker. How can they ever get out from the rule of these bad people?! 1 concerned popst!? The human race is in so much trouble.

It's sick the way they're forceing people into these recruits! This is a good post. I feel sorry for those people.. Thank you.

reply to post by demonicangel32


I agree it is appalling. I found an article that tells of some people trying to return to their villages. They are all destroyed, no power, no water or anything that would ease the burden has been destroyed.

But those returning are encountering the same kinds of obstacles seen by Salim -- crippled infrastructure, a lack of drinking water, ruined crops -- that stifle attempts to rebuild the economy. And residents also still face violence. Every night in Ambela, bursts of gunfire are heard as troops try to root out small pockets of Taliban fighters holed up on the forested hillsides skirting the village.

The U.S. has sent an envoy there in early June.

In a visit to Pakistan in early June, the U.S. special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard C. Holbrooke, said he was told by Antonio Guterres, the United Nations high commissioner for refugees, that reconstruction in the conflict zone could cost $500 million to $1 billion. The international community, Holbrooke said, would have to shoulder the cost.

The thing that gets me is that these people had to accept help from the same people that put them in this situation to begin with. I hope they see what is being done to them.

Especially worrisome, Khan said, is that provincial and federal government officials have yet to produce a plan for rebuilding Sultanwas. If authorities do not act soon, he warned, the Taliban and other Islamic extremists could exploit the government's inaction and muster new support among the people. "If there's little or no reconstruction, the Taliban will come to the people and say, 'We told you that if the government comes, there will be destruction,' " Khan said. "So reconstruction is very important, so that the Taliban doesn't regain a foothold in Swat and Buner."

www.latimes.com...

One problem I'm seeing here is that it could be a convenient excuse to do nothing because of the current state of the economy. That would make it easier to for the talaban to recruit more soldiers out of those who are not being taken care of.

I'm not trying to go off topic.. I believe we are in the end time. I think the situations around the world are being manipulated by the bankers and such and that they are planning something very bad everywhere.

Because we are generally more beneficial as a slave race I believe that the world movements are indicative of TPTB making a move of desperation because they see something coming. Not because of the economy, because it's an easy thing to restore if they wish to; and that they are trying to secure their position above the masses. I believe whatever they're seeing is making them afraid..

And by the way; I have prayed for those innocent people!!

DA


[edit on 20-6-2009 by demonicangel32]

reply to post by demonicangel32


I definitely agree with you. If nothing else they have made an impact on those they first forced from their homes, then played the good guy by tending to a few of them. I am afraid that the children are so easily fooled by this maneuver that they will remember the terrorists as being the good guys. It seems as though it is a never ending cycle. When will we learn?

reply to post by jackflap


It bothers me that there were no worthy responses to your thread. I looked at those poor people and my heart was touched by them.. I am very discussed by the way that the people in charge put so little value on another human life. But there's no reasoning with them. They'll never learn until it's too late. On the other side the situations will be reversed!!

DA

reply to post by jackflap

Baffling indifference to Pakistani 'exodus' trauma

Saturday, June 20, 2009

THE STORY is there is no story. The question is “why?” As I remember the destruction and death in north western Pakistan after the earthquake in October 2005, an event that attracted huge international attention and propelled frontline international aid agencies like Concern Worldwide to begin their rapid response emergency work, little did I know then that some four years later over two million people would be on the move in this part of the country, internally displaced by a sustained and ferociously intense military conflict between the Pakistani army and Taliban insurgents.

Why is there no coverage? This is strange.