Flood Affected People of Brep Village in Chitral Need Help

Over 60 homeless families displaced by floods at Brep village of Chitral district theree years back have called upon the federal government to rehabilitate them on a permanent basis and provide them basic amenities of life.

   They said they lost their agricultural land, houses and all other belongings when the intermittent floods struck the village in June-July three years back and buried half of its settlement under mud and rocks. Two primary and one middle schools were also destroyed.

  They criticized the provincial government for its failure to provide them assistance when it was urgently needed. "When the floods wrecked havoc in the village we were told to shift to tents at the Khotanlasht desert, so that we could be provided assistance under one roof and be rehabilitated. However, later nobody came to our rescue," they complained.

 They said former President Pervez Musharraf during Shandur festival had announced Rs30 million fund for the flood-affected people of the district, but they were not provided any substantial financial assistance for their rehabilitation. They accused the former provincial government of adopting a discriminatory attitude against them in distribution of relief funds.

  Apart from the destruction to property of over 140 families, the floods also washed away a large number of canals, cutting off water supply to standing crops, orchards and trees in other parts of the village.

  The education department could not make timely arrangements for continuing classes of over 300 students of the destroyed schools for over one month after which tents were provided for the children of the middle school while those belonging to the primary schools were shifted to other institutions. A visit to the camp by this correspondent recently showed that the  ð0-displaced people were living in a squalid condition without basic necessities of food, water and sanitation. They said the people of the nearby villages had provided them with daily-use items and food and were also helping them in construction of makeshift houses.