Monitoring Desk
SAR-I-PUL CITY: Dozens of internally-displaced persons (IDPs) from Sancharak district rallied against the government for failing to provide them aid and facilitate their safe return to homes.
Hailing from the Tabar and Taghikhwa villages of the district, the protesting IDPs said they had left their homes a week earlier due to a security operation. They are currently living in a school building, with no assistance from the government.
The IDPs staged a rally in Sar-i-Pul City and blocked a portion of the road between Azizi Bank and Maarif Street for three hours. They said only one organisation had provided them with some food items.
Mohammad, one of the displaced persons, asked: “If the government cannot provide us food and shelter, why has it forced us to leave our homes?”
He urged the government to facilitate their safe return to homes and provide them with food and water at the earliest possible.
But the governor’s spokesman, Zabihullah Amani, said the disaster management authority and charities distributed blankets and food thrice a day. But the aid was suspended after one welfare organisation found out the aid was sold by IDPs.
He said the government wanted the aid distribution process to be conducted by foreign NGOs. Commando forces had reached Sar-i-Pul and would launch a clearing operation soon, he concluded. (Pajhwok)
