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Update (Sept.
7)
The
following the latest update received from a colleague who is working in
the Kamaiya area:
Despite
whatever relief plans have been made for the Kamaiyas in Kathmandu, their
life seems to have improved little on the ground. There are now 37 camps
of displaced Kamaiyas in Kanachanpur and Kailali. In Dhangadhi, 237
families are living on the grounds of an old airport. Some men from the
camp have got jobs driving cycle-rickshaws, but in general food is scarce.
Plastic tarps have been provided by NGOs, but there are not enough to go
round. Reports say that monsoon diseases are running rampant in the camps.
Yegi
Raj Chaudhary, who is coordinating the relief efforts in Dhangadi, says
that 40 to 60 cases come for treatment everyday: "Sunday, a ten year
old girl died from encephalitis here. Now her mother and another child are
also seriously sick. I wouldn't say that people have given up, but they
seem weakened."
As
far as the relief programs go, Yegi Raj says so far only 12 people have
been employed under the Food for Work program. They said that more will be
employed in the coming days, but it is unlikely that much work will be
available before the monsoon ends. The main work is building roads and it
is not very practical to do this in low-lands under heavy rains.
The
Red Cross has started some medical services out of the hospital, but that
is all so far. There are 12 teams of medical assistants (through BASE and
Adra) traveling to the different camps and treating the families there.
They are apparently quite overburdened.
It
is also clear that the District Authorities are taking a very different
approach to the crises. The DDC chairperson in Kanchanpur says he is
committed to provide relief, and has used available district resources. He
even refused donation of tents from INGOs, saying that the district had
their own which they could make available. The local NGOs and the
government there are cooperating to provide services to the camps. In
Kailali, on the other hand, the government seems to actively oppose relief
work. Chairperson Mishra, who himself is a large landowner who held
Kamaiyas, has been against Kamaiya liberation from the beginning. He has
refused to open up the district's rice stocks for the people in the camps.
Blaming the NGOs for forcing the government's freedom declaration, he says
they themselves should be responsible for the relief work.
Given
the scale of the problem, it is clearly not possible for the local NGOs
alone to provide services. Apparently cooperation is working somewhat with
the CDO in Kailali.
The
government's Kamaiya registration program has been widely criticized. They
do not have nearly enough time to sit with local VDC and Ward members to
confirm the identities of former Kamaiyas. They have also not made any
attempt to use the records or expertise of local NGOs who have been
working with Kamaiyas. The result is that many of the people being
registered are reportedly not Kamaiyas at all, and many people who are
kamaiyas are not getting registered.
It
is feared that this will cause serious problems in the future if the lists
being made now are going to be the basis for rehabilitation.
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