The United Nations welcomed India and Pakistan’s agreement on Sunday to open their Kashmir border to earthquake survivors and relief supplies but said getting aid to millions remained a logistical nightmare.
After talks in Islamabad, India and Pakistan agreed to open crossings at five points along the military Line of Control dividing Kashmir from November 7.
Military officials from both sides are to hold talks on the clearing of tens of thousands of mines along the de facto border of disputed Kashmir to facilitate earthquake relief, V.K. Singh, army chief of staff who heads anti-insurgency operations in Indian Kashmir, told AFP.
A UN-led effort to get food and shelter to survivors of the October 8 earthquake that killed more than 56,000 people, mostly in Pakistani Kashmir but including 1,300 on the Indian side, has been hampered by landslides blocking many mountain roads.
As much as 30% of the areas affected have not been reached, which could translate into at least 200,000 people not getting the assistance they need, says the UN.
With a bitter Himalayan winter approaching and three million people homeless or needing shelter, aid workers fear hunger and exposure could kill as many as the number killed in the quake unless help reaches them quickly.
The United Nations, which says the world’s slow financial response to the disaster is threatening lives, welcomed the agreement but warned huge difficulties remained.
‘It will certainly not do any harm, but it will certainly not solve the logistical nightmare we are facing,’ UN emergency coordinator Jan Vandemoortele told Reuters.
‘It is absolutely positive, but it will not turn mountains into plains. We are still planning to get a major airlift going throughout the winter.’
Some Kashmiri families will undoubtedly benefit from the agreement, but large movements of people are unlikely given the massive damage to roads and the complex bureaucratic process involved in getting permission from both governments to cross.
Amanullah Khan, head of the pro-independence Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, said only a few people would benefit, while the agreement could help make the contested border permanent. ‘The benefit will be much less than the political costs,’ he told Reuters.
Natasha Hryckow, UN logistics coordinator in Muzaffarabad, capital of Pakistani Kashmir, told Reuters the agreement should make a huge difference when it came to getting aid to people cut off near the border, such as in the Neelum river valley.
‘If we had the potential to open it from the other side, we start getting road access to areas we can only fly helicopters to at the moment,’ she said. ‘That’s obviously going to make a huge impact on how much we can shift in and how many people we can keep in those areas.’
Getting aid across will mean much more work. A Friendship Bridge opened to allow the start of a bus service between the two sides of Kashmir this year has been badly damaged and army engineers on both sides are battling to clear many landslides.
Aid donors have provided $120 million for a massive relief effort, but that is far short of the $550 million the United Nations has asked for. While $580 million was promised at a donor conference in Geneva, Switzerland on October 26, the timing for receipt and purpose (emergency, rehabilitation, reconstruction) of pledges has not been confirmed.
Ann Veneman, the head of the UN Children’s Fund, visited the quake zone on Sunday and said the world had to wake up to the scale of the disaster or many more lives would be lost.
‘There is a tremendous need for continued resources. Winter is coming on. We could see very difficult times ahead,’ she said.
After talks in Islamabad, India and Pakistan agreed to open crossings at five points along the military Line of Control dividing Kashmir from November 7.
Military officials from both sides are to hold talks on the clearing of tens of thousands of mines along the de facto border of disputed Kashmir to facilitate earthquake relief, V.K. Singh, army chief of staff who heads anti-insurgency operations in Indian Kashmir, told AFP.
A UN-led effort to get food and shelter to survivors of the October 8 earthquake that killed more than 56,000 people, mostly in Pakistani Kashmir but including 1,300 on the Indian side, has been hampered by landslides blocking many mountain roads.
As much as 30% of the areas affected have not been reached, which could translate into at least 200,000 people not getting the assistance they need, says the UN.
With a bitter Himalayan winter approaching and three million people homeless or needing shelter, aid workers fear hunger and exposure could kill as many as the number killed in the quake unless help reaches them quickly.
The United Nations, which says the world’s slow financial response to the disaster is threatening lives, welcomed the agreement but warned huge difficulties remained.
‘It will certainly not do any harm, but it will certainly not solve the logistical nightmare we are facing,’ UN emergency coordinator Jan Vandemoortele told Reuters.
‘It is absolutely positive, but it will not turn mountains into plains. We are still planning to get a major airlift going throughout the winter.’
Some Kashmiri families will undoubtedly benefit from the agreement, but large movements of people are unlikely given the massive damage to roads and the complex bureaucratic process involved in getting permission from both governments to cross.
Amanullah Khan, head of the pro-independence Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, said only a few people would benefit, while the agreement could help make the contested border permanent. ‘The benefit will be much less than the political costs,’ he told Reuters.
Natasha Hryckow, UN logistics coordinator in Muzaffarabad, capital of Pakistani Kashmir, told Reuters the agreement should make a huge difference when it came to getting aid to people cut off near the border, such as in the Neelum river valley.
‘If we had the potential to open it from the other side, we start getting road access to areas we can only fly helicopters to at the moment,’ she said. ‘That’s obviously going to make a huge impact on how much we can shift in and how many people we can keep in those areas.’
Getting aid across will mean much more work. A Friendship Bridge opened to allow the start of a bus service between the two sides of Kashmir this year has been badly damaged and army engineers on both sides are battling to clear many landslides.
Aid donors have provided $120 million for a massive relief effort, but that is far short of the $550 million the United Nations has asked for. While $580 million was promised at a donor conference in Geneva, Switzerland on October 26, the timing for receipt and purpose (emergency, rehabilitation, reconstruction) of pledges has not been confirmed.
Ann Veneman, the head of the UN Children’s Fund, visited the quake zone on Sunday and said the world had to wake up to the scale of the disaster or many more lives would be lost.
‘There is a tremendous need for continued resources. Winter is coming on. We could see very difficult times ahead,’ she said.
