ISLAMABAD, 21 November (IRIN) - More than 50 percent of those displaced by last
year's South Asian earthquake and now living in makeshift settlements across northern Pakistan have cited landlessness as the main obstacle to their return, according to the findings of a joint
humanitarian survey released on Tuesday. "Of the 6,700 families surveyed in 47 tented camps for quake displaced, over 50 percent said that they would leave the camps if provided with land," Saleem
Rehmat, a spokesman for the International Organization for Migration (IOM), said in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad. "A small number of families said that they wanted to remain in the camps until
infrastructure was restored in their villages. Another small group said that they wanted to be permanently resettled in another location," the IOM spokesman added. More than 75,000 people died and
another 3.5 million were rendered homeless when a devastating earthquake ripped through parts of northern Pakistan on 8 October last year. Nearly 2 million quake survivors were forced to live in tents
and makeshift shelters throughout last winter, battling the harsh weather. Currently, around 35,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) continue to live in tented camps both in North West Frontier
Province (NWFP) and Pakistani-administered Kashmir. The survey was carried out between mid-August and early November by the IOM together with various government agencies to find out why quake
victims were failing to return home. A regional breakdown showed that some 30,000 people were registered in 44 camps of Pakistani-administered Kashmir, about 4,300 in three camps in NWFP, and nearly
1,100 were living in Islamabad. The majority of the displaced people listed their profession as 'labourer,' followed by 'farmer'. "Many foresaw obstacles in re-establishing their livelihoods. Only a
few said that they still owned livestock in their places of origin," the IOM's Rehmat said. Meanwhile, humanitarian aid agencies have accelerated efforts to upgrade existing shelters in tented camps
as winter in the region closes in. "At the moment, we are busy strengthening existing structures in three camps in Muzaffarbad [capital of Pakistani-administered Kashmir]," Margaret Vikki, head of
the camp management team of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), told IRIN on Tuesday. Next week, the winterisation campaign is due to be extended to more camps. "We plan to finish upgrading all the
44 makeshift settlements in Muzaffarabad by mid-December. But it depends how early we get the deliveries of iron sheets and bamboos," the NRC official added. The IOM survey also identified the most
vulnerable cases in the camps. "These included people with serious medical conditions, physical disabilities, households headed by widows and children, unaccompanied elders and children separated from
their parents," the IOM spokesman said.ts/sc/jl
