Crisis in Pakistan

Here's the latest from our team in Pakistan, which continues to help families from northwest Pakistan displaced earlier this year by the fighting between Taliban militants and the Pakistan army.

Nine-year-old Zafar Ali left his home in the district of Dir when fighting broke out between the Pakistan army and Taliban militants. Zafar was one of more than 1,300 kids who participated in a Mercy Corps program to provide a variety of games and toys to displaced children under the supervision of community volunteers. Photo: Mercy Corps

An average of 500 to 1,500 displaced families are returning to their homes each day. According to government data, 228,768 families of the 329,000 "verified" as displaced have returned to their homes in the districts of Swat, Buner and Dir.

Despite the high volume of returnees, the security situation in parts of Swat and Buner remains tenuous. While most of the major roads are open for traffic, reports of armed Taliban along the periphery are common. The military continues to conduct operations in many parts of Swat. Despite these risks, people are returning home to start rebuilding their lives and livelihoods.

We've sent several assessment teams to Swat to determine how we can best support returning families. In Mingora, we are working to improve water supply for more than 25,000 people. And we've submitted a proposal to bring clean water, improved sanitation and employment assistance to more residents of the district.

Our activities for displaced youth engaged a total of 642 boys and 743 at six locations. Under the same project, six nutrition trainings for 241 mothers. The tents, chairs, tables, whiteboards and electric fans were handed over to the schools, and the kids were allowed to take home toys and sports equipment.

We improved sanitation conditions and water access for 400 families living in 22 schools and one "spontaneous camp." Our teams constructed or rehabilitated 18 wells handpumps, 55 latrines, 61 bathrooms, 38 washing platforms, 14 drainage facilities, 27 waste-bins and 13 electric water coolers. They also distributed 16,000 water purification tablets, 400 hygiene kits, and 300 buckets and ablution pots.

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Mercy Corps was one of the first organizations to initiate relief and rehabilitation activities after the devastating earthquake in Pakistan and Kashmir in October 2005. Some women who lost their husbands in the earthquake are currently undergoing handicrafts development training in facilities established and funded by Mercy Corps in Jehlum Valley in Azad Jammu and Kashmir, or AJK. These women are currently earning crucial cash income to support their dependents, which they earn by stitching dresses and selling embroidery work.

Last month, these women voluntarily contacted Mercy Corps staff in AJK and wished to contribute through tailoring dresses for the internally displaced children. They requested Mercy Corps staff to help procuring cloth so that they could stitch those for free for IDP children.

Mercy Corps President Nancy Lindborg distributes dresses for girls displaced by fighting in northwest Pakistan between the Taliban and the army. The dresses were sewn by professional tailors as well as widows participating in a separate Mercy Corps-led handicraft training, who volunteered to make clothing for the displaced. Photo: Mercy Corps

The Mercy Corps staff in Muzaffarabad contacted shopkeepers, friends and relatives in Muzaffarabad town — the capital of AJK — and inquired if they wanted to contribute some fabric material. During this effort, some tailors in Muzaffarabad town also expressed interest in stitching dresses for free for the IDP children. Through these efforts, fabric material for making 150 dresses (100 for children, and 50 for elders) and shawls were collected.

The fabric donated by various shopkeepers, other individuals and Mercy Corps staff, was then provided to some tailors in Muzaffarabad and some of the women in the handicraft training.

The first consignment of 46 dresses (shalwar qameez) was made for girls by the women in training and sent to the Mercy Corps Head Office in Islamabad. These dresses were then distributed to girls in camps by Nancy Lindborg, Mercy Corps' president, during her visit to Pakistan.

The rest of the dresses are also ready, and the women who stitched them will soon visit the camps and distribute them for themselves.

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This one reads: "I am thankful to the Mercy Corps team because they have opened this center where we can receive education. Here teachers teach us how we all children can love each other and live together while taking care of cleanliness. Teachers also told us that the meaning of Mercy Corps is a "Group of Caring People" and that is why Mercy Corps also teaches us the lesson of love and help others. -Haseeba Akhtar"

This one reads: "Hi, My younger sister Rida is a student at the Mercy Corps Sport and Social Center. She gets up early in the morning, runs to the center and attends all the classes there. This is Mercy Corps’ love, care and friendliness with children that attracts children to the Mercy Corps center. We are really happy and thankful to Mercy Corps that in this critical situation MC gave an opportunity to our children to play and study in a very safe place. Our children are now to some extent out of trauma and they have more attraction towards studies and games, and this is all because of Mercy Corps. Mercy Corps has facilitated activities with our children using sports items, notebooks, colored pencils, etc. Thanks. Yours Faithfully, Adnan Swati Brother of Rida"

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Holden Basch is leading our emergency response to the Pakistan IDP crisis.

Holden Basch is visiting our Portland headquarters this week after spending the last two months running our emergency program in Pakistan for families displaced by fighting between the army and Taliban militants.

Our short-term programs there continue to aid families living far from home: We're making improvements to water and sanitation systems at overcrowded schools, providing kids with structured activities and safe places to play, and staffing birthing clinics and mobile health teams to treat pregnant women.

Some families have begun moving back home, and we're planning to follow them to ensure they recover their livelihoods after several months in limbo.

Basch, who previously worked for Mercy Corps in Helmand, Afghanistan, reflected on the crisis and our work.

Q. Reuters reported today that, "The Swat exodus was one of the biggest human migrations of recent times." Did it feel like that on the ground?
It is not immediately visible because so many people were absorbed by local communities. When we did distributions I saw 3,000 people in one place, but generally you didn't see that kind of "television" moment. With 80 percent of the people staying with host families, you don't see the displacement as a collection of people in one place.

Q. What did you think of the phenomenon of people sheltering strangers in their home?
It's amazing. Most of the people were sustained by the communities where they took shelter. It wasn't NGOs, it wasn't the Pakistan government, it wasn't the UN. It was the Pakistan community helping them. When you think that 80 percent of the people found a home, that's pretty amazing. I couldnt imagine it happening in the U.S. or in most other places in the world.

Q. The government is beginning to send home about 2 million people, according to news reports. Is this happening?
The government is cutting some services in the camps, and people are getting tired of staying there because it's hot and uncomfortable and the rains will start soon. They're thinking it's better to take a chance and go home. We haven't yet seen people going back in the same numbers that are being reported. Even if the government is starting to provide transportation for people back to their villages, when you think of the logistics, even if 10,000 people returned each day, it's going to take months to move millions of people.

Q. The programs we have are all due to end in the next two months, but do any of them provide a disincentive for families to return home?
No. It's not like Sudan, where people were so badly off that the camps are better places to live than their homes they left behind. Most of the families who've been displaced in Pakistan had a decent life, clearly better than where they have taken shelter, regardless of what we can offer them.

Q. One of our biggest emergency relief programs was distributing cash vouchers to more than 21,000 families. That seemed to go really well.
It was very successful, and somewhat of a new wave in development work. When you're working in a place where the banks are functioning, the shops have something to sell, why disrupt the market by trucking in food or non-food items like mosquito nets or mattresses. With cash, people get to decide for themselves what they need most. It’s good for the people who are displaced, and it's good for the local economy and the communities that are sustaining the displaced.

Q. What kinds of things will Mercy Corps try to do as people return home?
We have started assessing the areas that were abandoned to prepare for the returnees. What we'll have to do is look at how to help them regain a steady livelihood. There might be some animal health initiatives to help replace livestock that was abandoned or sold as people fled. We could also look at doing something to help the farmers who missed an entire harvest. But most projects will be connected to livelihoods.

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A quick update of the numbers on our kids' psychosocial program:

So far we've distributed 14 tents measuring 75 feet square to shelter children and provide safe play areas in a half-dozen locations. We've enrolled nearly 1,400 children in the program, and provided them with toys and sports equipment. And we've trained 30 onsite monitors on how to work with children to relieve stress and offer them positive outlets.

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From the latest situation report submitted by our emergency-response team in Pakistan:

Government of Pakistan figures show the number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) has risen to an estimated 3.584 million.

The situation still remains unpredictable. Many civilians are trapped in the conflict zone and unable to move, and on the other hand, small numbers of IDPs have left camps and returned to villages.

75-80% of the IDPs remain out of camp. The absorptive capacity of host communities is severely strained. To date, most IDPs living outside of camps have received little or no assistance.

Reports are that temperatures in tents for IDPs in camps are unbearable. However, Monsoon rains are not far away — predicted late June, early July. This will add a new set of challenges, mostly to camps, but also to other IDP communities.

We've distributed cash vouchers to more than 18,000 registered IDP families. With our disbursement systems strongly in place, we plan to achieve the goal of 20,000 families by Tuesday.

We've identified 20 locations and on-site child monitors for our youth psychosocial program. Staff have been hired. Procurement of tents, floor mats, art, sports equipment and games should be completed by Saturday. Nutrition training for trainers to begin Monday and will be conducted by our Islamabad-based health team.

A workplan for improving water access and santitation at schools overcrowded with IDPs has been finalized; work begins next week.

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This picture is of the kids of five families living in a primary school which is away from the distribution points in Pakistan's Mardan District. Photo: Shagufta Jeelani/Mercy Corps

Some of the items purchased for children by the Mercy Corps Pakistan staff.

Loading the bags for delivery.

On Saturday, we distributed bags and plastic sheets to 160 internally displaced people in six different locations in the Mardan District, where many of the 2.5 million IDPs are staying. These were items which we bought using nearly $4,000 in staff contributions. We have another 40 bags that will be distributed through emergency team this week.

The bags included something for the children. We distributed:

• 75 girls bags containing one suit piece of six-meter cloth (as they can stitch by borrowing sewing machine from host family), one mosquito net, and one pair of shoes, a doll and molding clay.
• 75 boys bags containing one suit piece of six-meter cloth, one mosquito net, one pair of shoes, a drawing book and colored pencils or crayons
• 200 hundred plastic sheets
• 300 hand fans (two for each family)

Distributing the bags at a school.

We also bought one pedestal fan for a family living in a school with four disabled brother and sisters. They could not even use hand fans, so we made a decision to provide them with a pedestal fan.

We collected money from staff in Islamabad, our Pakistan field offices and Portland to purchase and distribute these items.

Volunteers and community members helped us distribute the items. The emergency-response team requested them to prepare a list of those who are very needy and deserving. We distributed to those who were identified by the community and were on the list.

However, they were in need of so many other things that we requested community members and volunteers to prepare list of most deserving people in the community and also their three major needs at the moment. We will try to use the money remaining to buy those items.

A boy receives a box colored markers.

I would like to thank the distribution team who helped in all stages including buying all these items from various places, packing, loading and then distribution. Thank you very much ‘Waqas, Asim, Raheel for all you help on each stage. Special thanks to Batool, Irshad Rana, Haji Qasim, Shabbir, Adeel, Zaheer, Munir, Saqib, Hishaam and Kazim for helping us in packing and distribution.

We are very thankful to all of you who contributed money and made it possible to help IDPs and proved that Mercy Corps Pakistan is a great team!

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Holden Basch is leading our emergency response to the Pakistan IDP crisis.

This morning I talked with Holden Basch, who is leading our response to the Pakistan displacement crisis. He spent Friday in a village called Lundkwahr, speaking to displaced families to whom we'd given $45 vouchers to buy food, clothing and other essentials. It was about 9:30 p.m. local time in Islamabad when I spoke with him.

How many cash vouchers have we handed out so far?
We've distributed vouchers to about 10,000 people, mostly IDPs but also some host families. We'll distribute to the remaining 10,000 IDPs whom MC has registered next week.

The vouchers are exchanged at our distributions for bank checks that are redeemed at local banks.

Our distributions have been orderly because we first register the IDPs and provide them with vouchers to exchange at our distributions. This prevents a rush of unexpected people showing up, but in any distribution there is the possibility of chaos.

What have people been using the money for?
According to the group we talked to today, the majority bought food. The second-most mentioned items were clothing and medicine. And the third was kitchenware and local transport.

Mercy Corps is disbursing cash vouchers to families affected by the fighting between the Army and Taliban insurgents. At this distribution in the Mardan District, men are holding vouchers which are redeemed for a $45 check the next day. Photo: Holden Basch/Mercy Corps

Where are we focusing our efforts?
We're staying out of the official camps because they're getting so much attention. We're working mainly in schools, which have become sort of informal camps. And we also go to the host families, people who are taking on two, three, four families. We find them through community leaders and local organizations.

How are people faring?
Considering what they've gone through, they're managing well. But you can see tempers getting short, people are tired, some people are looking thin, beards are a bit untrimmed, clothing looks a bit worn.... It's just getting progressively harder for people, and not enough aid is getting to IDPs living outside the camps.

What are the issues for families taking shelter in schools?
One big problem is that these schools were set up to take 50-60 students a day, and now they've got hundreds of families living in them. The water tanks don't hold enough water, the pumps are broken, latrines are overflowing, so people have stopped using the latrines and are now using the school grounds for open defecation.

We don't know how long people will be there, so we don't want to go in and start digging new wells, or making permanent and dramatic changes to the school grounds. But there are pumps on wells that have broken or need repairing, or we can build separate wash stations so people aren't washing baby clothes and eating utensils in the same area. We're looking for the simplest and quickest ways to remedy the water and sanitation problems. We're working on improvements that will benefit close to 6,000 people.

Voucher distributions are segregated by gender: women collect their checks, then the men. And women only show up when no men in their household are available. Photo: Holden Basch/Mercy Corps

What's the sense of when displaced families might be able to return home?
Well for a while, people were talking about "early return," and the government was trying to encourage people to come back and saying they'd restart electricity and gas service. But there is fear that there's still a lot of Taliban hiding in the countryside, and when Pakistan Army pulls out the Taliban will return.

So we're seeing some hesitation on the part of the IDP families. They are living in unpleasant conditions. The fact that they're not going back says there's still security concerns.

Our best guess is that these families will stay until at least mid-July, but longer wouldn’t surprise us. By July the weather will start getting really hot — families from Swat are used to cooler weather — and the monsoon season will be right around the corner, so it's possible they'll decide to pack it in and try their luck back home. But we just don't know. They may just decide its better to suffer the weather than return.

Anything else you'd like to mention?
It's not easy to register 20,000 IDPs as quickly as we have under these conditions. They're hidden in houses, they're in schools, scattered in area of several kilometers in one community. And then to set up distributions for up to 3,000 people a day, at maybe five different locations, and make sure everything is orderly. The host communities have been very helpful, and our emergency-response team here deserves a lot of credit. We've been working 16-hour days, seven days a week to get it done.

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Our team in Pakistan continues to distribute $45 vouchers for families living in schools, public buildings and makeshift camps to buy what they need. We distributed checks to 1,250 families on Saturday, as well as another 1,550 on Monday.

We're also assessing where we can improve the overburdened water and sanitation situation at some of the schools where displaced families are staying. Some of these same schools are being evaluated for youth psychosocial program sites. We're selecting 10 schools where we'll be organizing activities for displaced children.

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Mercy Corps has begun providing sports and social activities to 1,200 displaced school-age children in Pakistan. Our goal is to provide kids in 20 schools-turned-displacement-camps with positive activities during the day, and reduce the stress associated with fleeing their homes to uncomfortable and unfamiliar surroundings.

The three-month program will take place in three communities in the Mardan District of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province, where fighting between the Army and Taliban militants has displaced more than 2.6 million people.

Each child will receive an activity kit that includes a backpack, crayons and paper. We're also giving each of the 10 schools money to purchase additional materials — such as puzzles, sports equipment and art supplies — and to erect a shelter for shade.

Another part of the program involves dispensing health and nutrition advice to 500 parents. This will include cooking demonstrations using local flavors and available resources to demonstrate simple and economical food choices — such as making chapatti, porridge, pakora and halwa.

The program will draw heavily from past experience after earthquakes in China and Peru. Our "Moving Forward" methodology uses sport, local games and dance to help alleviate the grief and trauma children suffer as a result of natural disaster and conflict.

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