Tragedy still surrounds fate of survivors: UN
By Zulfiqar Ahmad

GARHI HABIBULLAH—We are concerned about the fate of more than 50,000 mountain quake survivors and expect them to flee their mountain villages as the cold winter hits. This was stated by Antonio Guterres, the head of United Nations High Commissioner for Refugee (UNHCR) during his visit to the earthquake-devastated areas here on Thursday.
He urged local officials and the international aid agencies to urgently prepare for the arrival of thousands of people fleeing harsh conditions. He said the world must ensure villagers who choose to remain in the ruins of their shattered homes get the help they need to survive the next few months.
"We are doing our best to ensure that everybody, even in the most remote locations, gets enough support to face the winter and to get through the winter without tragedy," he said.
"It is absolutely awful," he said, while talking to the quake survivors during his visit to the refugee camps. "I have no words to describe my feelings. I don't ever remember seeing a disaster of these proportions", said Mr Guterres. He asked the quake survivors about their concerns, the refugees said they just wanted to rebuild their homes before winter sets in. He lauded the efforts of Pakistan and the international community for their quick response to the devastated earthquake disaster and called upon them to hastily building more camps to accommodate the refugees.
He urged the international community to keep up the momentum in recovery efforts, noting that Pakistan has hosted refugees from war and persecution in neighbouring Afghanistan for decades and must not be abandoned in its hour of need.
"It's more than a humanitarian operation. It is a political and moral duty to be here and be totally engaged," he maintained. He said Pakistan has been the most generous host of refugees and it is time for the international community to pay back ... that means rebuilding their lives. It is not only rebuilding the houses, the schools and the roads. It is rebuilding the lives of the people that we are committed to", he said.
Agencies add: He said that the focus of Pakistani earthquake relief efforts was now to avert a tragedy over the imminent winter.
UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres visited the disaster zone on Thursday as the United Nations and Pakistani authorities braced for a flood of people streaming down from high country to lower, warmer areas once the cold weather set in.
“What we are trying to do is create conditions for people to be able to go over the winter without any tragedy,” Guterres told reporters in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Azad Kashmir. “That’s our commitment, that’s our concern, that’s what everybody together is working to achieve,” he said.
The October 8 earthquake killed more than 73,000 people, most of them in the Pakistani side of the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir. About three million people lost their homes in the disaster and Pakistani authorities, as well as foreign military teams and aid agencies, are racing to ensure survivors get shelter and enough food to last them until spring.
Chief UN coordinator in Muzaffarabad Rashid Khalikov later told Guterres the biggest challenge for the relief effort could be an exodus of people from high-altitude settlements once the cold weather bites. “We are preparing a strategy to cope with the movement of people in the wake of the winter,” Khalikov said.
“We don’t know whether it will take place or not, and how many will do it, but we are preparing,” he said. Pakistani Kashmir’s relief commissioner, Salim Bismil, told Guterres authorities expected up to 50,000 more people to come down from mountains during winter, joining thousands who have already arrived.
Authorities in Azad Kashmir have been encouraging people to leave the highest settlements and move into tent villages on the valley floors for the winter but many villagers are reluctant, at least for now, to leave their land. “We want them to stay below 5,000 feet,” Bismil said, adding that no one was being forced to move: “We are doing it by motivation and not by coercion”.
Earlier, Gutteres met the prime minister of Azad Kashmir in his quake-damaged office in Muzaffarabad, much of which was destroyed in the 7.6 magnitude tremor. “What we achieved over the last 40 to 50 years has gone in 40 to 50 seconds,” Sikander Hayat Khan said.
The UNHCR has organized several tent camps for homeless survivors in the disaster area but Guterres said his agency was concerned about unorganized, so-called spontaneous camps that have sprung up in Muzaffarabad and elsewhere. The camps, often without water and sanitation facilities, are seen as a breeding ground for communicable diseases.
“We are very much concerned for the solution of spontaneous camps,” he said. Gutteres said his agency did not want to be a leading player in helping after natural disasters but it had little choice. “From our point of view it is more than a humanitarian operation. It is a political and moral duty. We need to be totally engaged,” he said.