UNHCR staff show how to install kerosene stoves, Thuri Park camp, Muzaffarabad, Pakistan-administered Kashmir. © UNHCR/M.Cierna.

In Pakistan, a host of small triumphs is helping to ease suffering and save lives as survivors and relief workers continue to struggle with the impact of last October’s earthquake.

Camps in the Siran Valley, near Mansehra, have been plagued by persistent rain and freezing temperatures. One January weekend, staff from the UN Refugee Agency and our partner BEST, trudged through muddy fields distributing heating stoves and kerosene to 207 families in two camps. “This new heater is a lifesaver,” said Mohammed Ibrar as he and his family huddled around their new stove. In the following week, more camps received heaters, together with safety training and fuel, to supplement earlier distributions of tents, blankets, plastic sheets and mattresses. In total, the UN Refugee Agency delivered 40,000 stoves bringing warmth and comfort to refugees.

The UN Refugee Agency, with its partners, have also been setting up schools in relief camps. Equipment is basic, but the children are eager and the classes are crowded. Before they came to the Bandha Sahib camp in the North-West Frontier Province, school simply wasn’t an option for girls like 15-year-old Sabermina and her sister, Nazbergam. “When we return to our village, I hope we will have an opportunity to continue our schooling,” she says.

Meanwhile, people living in the Meira Camp in northern Pakistan were cut off from their home villages on the other side of the Indus River, when the cable way was damaged in the earthquake. Men and women, keen to restore the villages and farms back home, were risking their lives by making the crossing in flimsy rafts. Now the UN Refugee Agency has helped put the cable cars back in action and each day some 700 people travel safely over the river – thanks to our supporters whose gifts enabled us to make this huge impact on their daily lives.

As spring finally arrives after a hard, cold winter, things are looking up in Pakistan. Already, 36,000 people have left camps and are returning home at last.

Photo captions:
Above right: Reporters interview Lt. Gen. Nadeem Ahmed, deputy chief of Pakistan's Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority for the first programme of "Hemat Javan Hai." © UNHCR/S.Dabiri
Above inset: © UNHCR/A. Rummery

Sudanese refugees are repatriated from Moyo in northern Uganda aboard UNHCR trucks. As of July 2006, the number of Sudanese returnees under a UNHCR programme launched in December 2005 passed the 10,000 mark. © UNHCR/M.Feixas Vihé

Q: What interested you in the UN Refugee Agency?

A: As a relief worker, I came to realise that helping refugees and the most vulnerable by providing aid is not enough. Working for this agency allows me to help shape the way the world views and treats refugees and displaced people. We empower them by providing the protection they deserve.

Q: Why did you volunteer to be part of the Emergency Response Team?

A: It brings me comfort to stand side by side with the people who need help and together try to overcome the difficulties they face.

Q: What did you see on your mission to South Sudan?

A: We saw first hand the devastation of the brutal civil war. We saw the difficulties a country faces to survive with meagre resources. We saw how thousands of acres of land go uncultivated due to landmines. We saw how malnourished children sit under a tree for lessons, because they have no schools. We saw mothers walk long hours to fetch water. But we also saw the smiles of people returning to their homes. We felt their hope and the dawn of a new day for South Sudan.

Q: What is the most difficult part of your work?

A: Being away from my family.

Q: And the most rewarding?

A: Helping people to recover hope. Seeing children playing without a care in the world. Helping people to come back home.

For more of the latest news on the situation in Sudan, visit the Sudan Country page on the UNHCR's International website.