UN team completes mission in North Western Pakistan

A high-level UN delegation has wrapped up its mission to discuss the strengthening of humanitarian assistance to those uprooted by military operations in Swat district of North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan, the United Nations has said.

"We met district authorities and national and international non-governmental organisations, and established the need for early recovery activities to start as soon as possible," Martin Mogwanja UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Pakistan said.

Mogwanja, who led the UN delegation to Pakistan's NWFP said: "So far the humanitarian community has distributed food and health kits but we want to expand our assistance."

Due to the increased presence in the region, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs was planning to open a satellite office in Swat which will work closely with the district authorities and other humanitarian actors on the ground.

 

"So far the humanitarian community has distributed food and health kits but we want to expand our assistance," he said.

As of last week, the Pakistani government estimated that around 1.6 million of the over two million people displaced by conflict in NWFP had returned to their villages.

Over half of the returnees went back to the districts of Swat and Buner, among the areas hardest hit by fighting, while the rest returned to Dir and Shangla districts.

During their mission to Swat, UN agencies gained a better understanding of the current situation and found that agriculture, education and health were of the highest importance, according to a news release issued by the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

OCHA too is planning to open a satellite office in Swat that will work closely with the district authorities and other humanitarian actors on the ground. The mission to Swat included representatives of OCHA, as well as the World Health Organisation (WHO), the World Food Programme (WFP) and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF).