As bad weather looms, UN agency steps up aid efforts for Pakistan quake victims

With heavy rain and snow expected any day now in those areas of northern Pakistan hit by a deadly earthquake in October, the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) is stepping up its efforts to help nearly 140,000 survivors left homeless by the disaster.

“UNHCR is intensifying its winterization drive in relief camps by replacing low quality tents, distributing heating stoves and relocating people to camps that are better equipped to cope with the bad weather,” spokesperson Ron Redmond told a news briefing in Geneva today.

Mr. Redmond said communal heating tents had already been set up in Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province and the agency would start distributing stoves to individual tents in Pakistan-administered Kashmir this weekend.

Since the disaster struck, the UNHCR has distributed hundreds of thousands of blankets, tents, plastic sheets and other emergency items to survivors, targeting assistance to the most vulnerable groups among them – namely women, children, the elderly and the disabled.

In light of this, the UNHCR has set up “women’s committees” in some of the camps while strengthening the ability of local NGOs to provide gender-sensitive services to earthquake survivors.

“Women have special needs and certain special groups like single mothers, widows and the disabled may have problems getting access to different services and relief items. We have formed 27 women's committees in camps to look after these needs,” says the UNHCR’s Zainab Fazal Hussain, who monitors facilities for women in the camps.

UNHCR is the main UN agency responsible for managing the camps that were established to help the survivors of the devastating 8 October earthquake, which killed more than 73,000 people. The agency is currently supporting the Pakistan Government and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in 144 such camps where homeless survivors struggle with the sub-zero temperatures of the harsh Himalayan winter.

Meanwhile today, in another UNHCR-related development, agency chief António Guterres today announced the appointment of Judy Cheng-Hopkins of Malaysia as Assistant High Commissioner for Operations and Erika Feller of Australia as Assistant High Commissioner for Protection.