PESHAWAR – After living in makeshift tents and rented houses for months, some 24 families have returned to the comparatively safer parts of the troubled Mohmand and Bajaur agencies, where thousands are still taking shelter in the camps established for the internally displaced persons (IDPs). The government has offered free transportation facilities, food for few months and voluntary registration for those who have been living outside the government-run camps. “They will be provided financial assistance once the repatriation process completes.
The damage assessment will be carried out after peace returns to the region,” officials privy to the development told Pakistan Today on Tuesday.
They said the facility was for all the families, whether living in the camps or privately in the nearby residential districts, displaced by the military operations against the militants. When approached Allah Dad Durrani, in-charge of Jalozai Camp in District Nowshera, told Pakistan Today on phone that some 71 families had been registered till Tuesday evening, adding that 24 of them, including 15 from the camp, left for Mohmand and Bajaur agencies.
“We got a report that three families of the returning 24 could not reach their respective villages. The three families had stayed overnight in a temporary camp in Nahaqai in Mohmand but we could not receive the report to know the reasons,” he said. According to reports, some 12,000 families have been displaced from Bajaur and 1500 from Mohmand, which are currently being accommodated, but many families are living outside the camps.
This is really a hard task to ascertain that how many total displaced families are. When asked about the new arrivals from the Tirah Valley of Khyber Agency, where fierce fighting has erupted between the militant groups, Durrani replied, “We don’t have orders for the IDPs of these areas but the government would have to provide all the facilities to them.”
