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Displacement in Pakistan largest and fastest in years, says UN refugee agency

Displacement in Pakistan largest and fastest in years, says UN refugee agency

A displaced Pakistani girl carries a bucket of rice as her sister follows in Yar Hussain camp.
Almost 1.5 million people have escaped fighting between Government troops and Taliban militants in north-west Pakistan, the United Nations refugee agency said today, calling the displacement the largest and fastest to occur anywhere in the world in recent years.

According to the Social Welfare Department of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), 1.45 million people have been registered in 89 centres since 2 May.

UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) António Guterres, who wrapped up a three-day visit to the area this weekend, has called on the international community for a massive influx of support to assist the surging numbers of uprooted people.

“It’s like trying to catch something that’s moving ahead of us because the number of people on the move every day is so big and the response is never enough,” he said. “Leaving this population without the support they need – with such massive numbers – could constitute an enormous destabilizing factor.”

Fewer than 10 per cent of the displaced are seeking shelter in camps, and the 1.5 million who have become internally displaced persons (IDPs) recently join over 500,000 others who fled clashes last year, bringing the total number of displaced to just over 2 million.

UNHCR has set up a relief bank and distribution centre in the NWFP town of Nowshera to both receive and hand out supplies such as pillows and soap. Similar centres are slated to open in the cities of Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi.

The agency, in partnership with the World Food Programme (WFP) and the Pakistani Government, has set up humanitarian ‘hubs’ where IDPs can register, receive supplies and be directed into available shelter within local communities.

For its part, WFP is dispatching record amounts of wheat flour, rice, sugar and pulses, and plans to send enough supplies to feed 1.5 million people.