PESHAWAR: The displaced tribespeople from the militancy-hit North Waziristan tribal region are anxiously waiting to return home as quickly as possible to restart normal life. According to the Fata Disaster Management Authority (FDMA), a total of 104,382 families were displaced, out of which 53,102 families have been sent home.
Syed Fayaz Ali Shah, Director General of FDMA, said efforts were underway to facilitate the remaining 51,280 families, almost 50.87 per cent of the total displaced families, to return by the end of this year.
These families had left homes in a hurry when the Pakistan Army launched a massive military offensive against local and foreign militant groups, including al-Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban, in North Waziristan on June 15, 2014.
The villages and towns in North Waziristan wherein the displaced families have been returned are the areas that the military, particularly Frontier Corps (FC), have cleared of the militants. Besides these families, Fayaz Ali Shah said, 5,531 families had returned to villages without seeking any financial and food assistance from the government. “Some of the displaced people didn’t wait for the official repatriation and wanted to return themselves,” he said.
“The government had made a commitment in the National Action Plan to send back all the displaced tribespeople to native areas with full respect and honour by the end of 2016. We are working on the same plan. There will be no IDP in 2017,” the FDMA head pledged.
He said each family is given Rs10,000 cash for transportation in addition to Rs25,000 cash for other requirements and six-month food ration during repatriation.
Besides cash amount and food, the FDMA director general said the government had also started compensating the affected tribespeople.
“Since it was a massive military offensive, some public and private properties were damaged. The government will reconstruct public properties and it has decided to pay Rs400,000 per completely damaged house and Rs1,60,000 sfor partially damaged home in the tribal region,” the official added. He said there was no dearth of funds for the rehabilitation and the process would be accelerated in the coming months.
“Some have apprehensions about security and basic facilities such as health, education, electricity and telephone. The government has been working to provide the returnees all the facilities available to them before the military operation,” he said. However, the displaced tribespeople aren’t satisfied with the rehabilitation process.
Syed Halim Dawar is the head of 14-member family, including five men and three women who once lived a happy life in Danday Darpakhel village, five kilometres northwest of Miranshah, the administrative headquarters of North Waziristan.
“I would never forget that terrible and harsh day when we left our paradise (home) in a hurry. The home comprising four rooms was full of everything that we had acquired in life. But we could not bring along even a single item along with us and left those at the mercy of Allah Almighty and armed forces,” 55-year-old Syed Halim Dawar recalled.
Syed Halim said that June 13 in 2014 was the darkest day of his life when he left his native village and tribal region for a crime they had not committed. He said he had a ‘well-established’ business of machis, plastic shopping bags and eggs at Miranshah Bazaar, run by his sons, and his younger brother was having a medicine business.
“I left my running business worth Rs4.08 million. We are now hearing that Miranshah bazaar that comprised of 12,000 shops, hundreds of markets and commercial plazas, has been razed to the ground. I can’t even ask about the precious goods I have left behind in shops,” he said.
Syed Halim said that after fleeing their village in North Waziristan, they reached a town in Bannu district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, after eight hours travel – some time in a truck and often on foot as the government had made no prior arrangements for accommodation of the uprooted families.
“After hectic efforts, we arrived in Bannu and spent a few days at the house of our relatives. Then we went to Mansehra where weather was at least good. We acquired a house on rent. We were sitting idle and spent whatever we had earned in life,” he said.
He later moved to Peshawar in the hope of starting a small business and earning livelihood for family and left two of his son in Haripur in Hazara region, but could not succeed.
“Gone are the days when I had huge cash and business. Now I can’t open a small shop as it requires heavy amount to start business in Peshawar,” he said.
Like many other displaced people, Syed Halim said he spent his days and nights at a small house in Peshawar in the hope that the government would send them back to their native North Waziristan where he could restart his business and normal life.
However, he had to shift his family to Abbottabad before the holy month of Ramazan due to high rent of the house and hot weather in Peshawar.
“This is the third Ramazan we spent as IDPs and in extreme harsh circumstances. We are now anxiously waiting to be sent home where I could see my house and village. But those sent back before us complained of the lack of facilities like drinking water, health and education facilities as well as electricity and telephone. Also, people of one village are not allowed to go to another village and that’s why people are reluctant to return,” he said.