2,600,000 people waiting for help in KP: Afrasiab

2,600,000 people waiting for help in KP: Afrasiab
--- Fund raising campaign needs expedition
By Mohammad Saleem Mehsud

PESHAWAR, Aug 11 : Provincial President of Awami National Party (ANP) Afrasiab Khattak has said that the federal government has not provided due share in the foreign aid to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where hundreds of thousands of people were waiting for the assistance.

“Some 2,600,000 people are waiting for government help in different areas of the province,” Afrsaib Khattak said that the scope of devastation could increase.

In an interview with a private TV Channel here at Peshawar, Khattak said that the current pace of fund raising for the flood-effected people was very slow and needed to be speeded up.

Afrasiab said that the province of KP was badly hit by the recent flood in its history and the estimated devastation as compared to the remaining country was large where need for aid and relief was growing with each passing day and KP Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain has also informed the centre to give big share of aid to KP for the rehabilitation of the displaced people.

“The government of KP was supplying food and other necessaries to the displaced people living in relief camps and government schools,” Khattak said that to overcome the entire situation created by the flood was out of reach of KP government as from DIKhan, Tank to Chitral the whole areas were badly effected by flood and people of adjacent areas can’t help each other as they done during displacement which took place after the security forces operation in Swat against the militants.

Khattak said that only in Swat the estimated devastation was out of imagination as there remains no connecting and main bridge in the way from Mangora to Kalam and the people were facing acute shortage of food items because all the main routes were washed away in the recent scourge of flood. The area needs immediate construction of temporary bridges to connect the areas with the entire province in order to ensure supply of items of daily use to the area, if the bridges were not constructed timely then helicopter service will be required for transportation of goods to the area.

“Different kinds of diseases were developing in the flood affected areas which require immediate vaccination of the residents to overcome the diseases,” Khattak said that provincial government lacks such vaccines and there is dire need of drinking water in the flood-ravaged areas.

Responding to a question regarding distribution of funds Khattak said that all the institutions along with army should join hand to carry out the work but there is need of survey on large scale to collect the data of estimated devastation then according to facts and figures the aid would be distributed in transparent way. He said that we have already experienced the process and collected the data of Malakand where damages were done at the result of war against militants and in the meantime when the government was releasing cash cheques to the effectees the flood outburst halted the process.

Afrasiab said that there is dire need to mobilize the locals and international community for help of the flood-affected people in order to ensure timely supply of aid to the displaced people waiting for help.