PAKISTAN: UNHCR begins setting up the largest relief camp in Pakistani administered Kashmir at Mera Tholia

Record ID: 347069

  • Title: PAKISTAN: UNHCR begins setting up the largest relief camp in Pakistani administered Kashmir at Mera Tholia
  • Date: 30th October 2005
  • Summary: WIDE VIEW OF CAMP YOUNG GIRL WRINGING BUTTER OUT OF POLYTHENE BAG WIDE VIEW OF CAMP
  • Embargoed: 14th November 2005 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Pakistan
  • Country: Pakistan
  • Topics: Disasters / Accidents / Natural catastrophes
  • Reuters ID: LVA4N2DPNAFB8QQK42YN47UUNH2
  • Story Text: Mera Tholia, outside Muzaffarabad, is set to become the largest relief camp in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.
    The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) has provided three hundred tents so far for this camp and more are on the way.
    When it is complete it will have up to 2,000 tents and will offer shelter to quake survivors during the winter months.
    "Initially there were about seventy families but now the government has allocated this land for a proper camp which UNHCR will be supporting," said Urooj Saifa of UNHCR.
    "We have started with about 120/130 tents at the moment. We have distributed three hundred which are being erected in that direction up the hill. And eventually I think, in a month's time, this will be a 2,000 tent camp," he added.
    The camp is a joint effort between UNHCR and the Pakistani charity, The Al Mustafa Trust.
    UNHCR says it has distributed nearly 2,000 tents in Pakistan-administered Kashmir as well as 5,000 blankets and thousands of cooking sets, plastic sheets and other relief supplies, since a massive earthquake on October 8 that killed at least 55,000 people, injured more than 78,000 and has left a further over three million in need of shelter, and in many cases food, before winter arrives in the stricken areas.
    A UNHCR handout says it aims to provide 20,000 tents, nearly a quarter of a million blankets as well as other supplies in the near future.
    "We have lived under the open sky. Then we were shifted from there and brought here yesterday," says Shabnam, a school teacher.
    "What can I say about the future? Right now conditions are bad. We had two three houses which have been completely destroyed; we don't have anywhere to live. We will live here now, in the tents," she added.
    UNHCR is already supporting six camps in Muzaffarabad and three in more remote areas.
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