U N I T E D   N A T I O N S
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
Integrated Regional Information Network for Central Asia

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Central Asia
IRIN-CAS Weekly Round-up 144
27 December 2003 - 02 January 2004


CONTENTS:

IRAN: Earthquake survivors registered and moved into tent cities
IRAN: Earthquake relief having an impact 
IRAN: Desperate search for the living continues 
IRAN: Earthquake needs assessment 'mammoth task' - UN 
IRAN: Earthquake rescue phase over 
IRAN: Earthquake needs assessment under way 
IRAN: UN responds to huge earthquake in which an estimated 20,000 have died 
IRAN: Scene of total devastation following earthquake 
IRAN: Hospitals overwhelmed with thousands of seriously injured 
AFGHANISTAN-IRAN: UN assisting Afghan refugees from Bam 
AFGHANISTAN-IRAN: Earthquake drives Afghan refugees home 
AFGHANISTAN: Ethnic split emerges at Loya Jirga 
AFGHANISTAN: Loya Jirga to move to a vote on the constitution 
PAKISTAN: Focus on the governance impact of Musharraf's vote of confidence 
PAKISTAN: Natural gas stations break environment laws 
PAKISTAN: Supreme Court legalises "free-will" marriages 
PAKISTAN: 4,000 strong force to police capital from Tuesday 
CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap 


IRAN: Earthquake survivors registered and moved into tent cities

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is now preparing to begin the
long process of reconstructing people's lives among Bam's most vulnerable
inhabitants. This comes a week after the earthquake virtually destroyed
the city and killed at least 30,000. "Our problem is data," Marc Vergai,
spokesman for UNICEF told IRIN on Friday. "Where are the people in need
and how many are there?" Because there is conflicting information on how
many people are left in Bam, there is no breakdown of how many children
there are, let alone their age and sex. "Until we know this, work is
difficult," Vergai added.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=38702&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=IRAN


IRAN: Earthquake relief having an impact

Teams of Iranian Red Crescent Society volunteers (IRCS) have been
distributing ration books to families in each of Bam's twelve districts,
six days after the devastating earthquake that claimed an estimated 40,000
lives hit the city. Survivors will be given essentials such as rice,
sugar, oil, tea and vegetables, as well as blankets, cooking equipment and
sanitary products. After a concern over shelter, the IRCS have also been
providing more tents, having allocated over 90,000 by Thursday. "We have
had some difficulties due to the large scale of the disaster but now the
relief work is going relatively well. The main problem will be
rehabilitation and reconstruction of the future and how we will link
relief to the rehabilitation phase," Mustafa Mohaghegh, the IRCS
international relations coordinator, told IRIN in Bam.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=38679&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=IRAN


IRAN: Desperate search for the living continues

Many of the friends and relatives of the estimated 40,000 dead in the Bam
earthquake are in denial and frantically continuing to search for their
missing kith and kin, rescue workers told IRIN on Wednesday, five days
after the disaster struck. "Someone heard moaning - last night, they heard
moaning!" a man shouts and waves his arms as he runs up to the foreigners
in the fluorescent suits. He is panting and beads of sweat have collected
on his upper lip. An Iranian rescue worker with an international search
and rescue team translates. They follow the man across the flattened,
devastated landscape of Bam, picking their way through the mounds of
rubble.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=38660&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=IRAN 


IRAN: Earthquake needs assessment 'mammoth task' - UN

An aid-needs assessment carried out by the UN has highlighted the shortage
of food and water in the southeastern Iranian city of Bam - hit by a
destructive earthquake six days ago - and surrounding villages. With the
recent drop in temperature and the consequent risk of hypothermia, the
aid-needs assessment is focusing on shelter.  "What we've been looking at
is the quality and quantity of the temporary accommodation," Ted Pearn,
the manager of the UN On-Site Operations Coordination Centre (OSOC), part
of the UN Disaster Assistance Coordination Team (UNDAC), told IRIN.
Temporary accommodation consists of tents or tarpaulins. Many survivors
are still without tents and rely on small fires to keep warm through the
bitterly cold nights. Others only have one tent for up to two families,
but the objective is to get up to 100,000 people some form of protection
from the elements. Erection of 3 tent camps has started in the city. The
camps are designed to accommodate up to 60,000 people each.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=38672&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=IRAN 


IRAN: Earthquake rescue phase over

The rescue phase of the international aid effort in Bam was drawing to a
close on Tuesday evening as attention turned to shelter and humanitarian
aid. Nearly 100,000 people are feared homeless - many are still without
tents, adequate food and clean water. The UN has confirmed that 28,000
people have been killed in the earthquake in Bam, and Iranian President
Mohammad Khatami has said the figure is likely to rise to 40,000.
According to the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
(OCHA) there were 1,600 international search and rescue, health and relief
personnel drawn from 44 nationalities operating in the disaster area. As
priorities are shifting, countries such as Australia, Japan, Netherlands,
Turkey and UK are providing more relief items and additional medical teams
to the Bam area.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=38656&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=IRAN 


IRAN: Earthquake needs assessment under way

Efforts are now under way to assess the humanitarian needs of tens of
thousands of residents impacted by Friday's devastating earthquake in the
southeastern Iranian city of Bam in which at least 20,000 people died. "We
are now entering the next phase, which is humanitarian relief," Ted Pearn,
a member of the United Nations Disaster Assessment and Coordination
(UNDAC) team told IRIN from Bam. While there had still been some rare
instances of people being pulled out alive from under the rubble, the
rescue phase had all but finished, he said. Pearn's comments come three
days after a quake - measuring between 6.3 and 6.7 on the Richter scale -
ripped through the ancient city in the early hours of Friday, leaving some
70,000 people homeless and at least 20,000 dead. Iranian authorities
reported that they had buried 18,000 dead by Monday afternoon. The death
toll could rise much higher as information from outlying villages affected
by the quake reaches authorities.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=38629&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=IRAN 


IRAN: UN responds to huge earthquake in which an estimated 20,000 have
died

The United Nations has sent a Disaster Assessment and Coordination (UNDAC)
team to southeastern Iran in response to the devastating earthquake in
which an estimated 20,000 people have been killed and 50,000 injured with
tens of thousands still missing. Accurate figures remain hard to come by
more than 24 hours after the quake hit, as communications with the
blighted city of Bam, 975 km southeast of the Iranian capital, Tehran,
remain difficult. "Two people have already arrived in the affected area
and they are starting to coordinate on site. The others will arrive
today," a spokesperson for the UN's Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Madeleine Moulin, told IRIN from Geneva on
Saturday. "We do not at this stage have any more information on the scale
of devastation, but it is a huge tragedy," she added.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=38615&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=IRAN 


IRAN: Scene of total devastation following earthquake

At least 4,000 people have been confirmed dead following Friday's
earthquake in Bam, in southeastern Iran. Estimates put the figure at over
20,000 with 50,000 injured. The scene in the city is one of total
devastation - the bodies of the dead line the streets while distraught
relatives are frantically shovelling ruins in the hope of finding
survivors.

"I've lost everyone - my wife, my children, my mother, my brother, my
aunts, my uncles," a sobbing man told IRIN. "Where are the rescue workers?
We need them and they're not here," he cried. Nearby sits the only
surviving family from an entire street. "We jumped from the second window,
I've got my two daughters and my husband, but we've lost everyone else.
And this is now the sum of our lives," she told IRIN, pointing at the few
belongings that were perched on the mound of rubble that was once her
home.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=38616&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=IRAN


IRAN: Hospitals overwhelmed with thousands of seriously injured

The blood-spattered floor of Kerman's Shahid Bahonar Hospital is lined
with hundreds of casualties. Nurses, doctors and relatives frantically
pick their way through the maze of bodies, careful not to stand on the
hands and feet splayed out beneath them. This is where the thousands of
casualties from Friday's devastating earthquake in Bam are being brought.
Rising above the din of chaos are the groans of the injured. Every minute
a new arrival drenched in blood and dust is rushed through the hospital,
carried on a dirty blanket - the stretchers ran out within hours - to be
squeezed between the injured. Rescue workers in Iran - who are experienced
and highly regarded across the developing world - simply cannot cope.
Buses are being used as ambulances, schools and mosques as makeshift
hospitals and shelter. Many of the wounded have been

making their own way to Kerman, in undrivable cars without windscreens,
bonnets or windows, metal casualties also pummelled by the falling
buildings.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=38617&SelectRegion=Central_Asia,%20Global&SelectCountry=IRAN 


AFGHANISTAN-IRAN: UN assisting Afghan refugees from Bam

In collaboration with local authorities, aid organisations and UN agencies
in the western Afghan border city of Herat are working to assist hundreds
of Afghans that have returned to their homeland following last week's
devastating earthquake in the southwestern Iranian city of Bam, many of
whom have returned to bury their dead. The news follows reports from the
Afghan-Iran border that thousands of Afghan refugees who lived in the city
were heading home, after the deadly quake ripped through the ancient city
on 26 December, killing at least 30,000 people and leaving thousands more
homeless. On Wednesday, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) announced it was
preparing to help returning Afghans from Bam. "WFP is providing both
transport services and food assistance to those families suffering the
devastating trauma of having lost their loved ones and their belongings in
Bam at the same time," Maarten Roest, a public affairs officer for the
food agency told IRIN on Thursday in Kabul.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=38693&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN-IRAN 


AFGHANISTAN-IRAN: Earthquake drives Afghan refugees home

Reports emerging from the Afghan/Iran border suggest thousands of Afghan
refugees who lived in Bam, scene of Friday's destructive earthquake that
killed an estimated 20,000 people, are heading home after having lost
everything in the disaster. "We're getting reports from provincial
authorities in Iran that many Afghans caught up in the quake have reached,
or are making for the border, intending to repatriate to Afghanistan,"
Christopher Horwood, an official in the United Nations Assistance Mission
in Afghanistan's (UMAMA) Herat office, told IRIN on Monday. Aid agencies
estimate around 5,000 Afghans were resident in the southeastern Iranian
city of Bam and that 90 percent of them were affected by the quake.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=38622&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN-IRAN 


AFGHANISTAN: Ethnic split emerges at Loya Jirga

Delegates from Afghanistan's Constitutional Loya Jirga (CLJ) reassembled
in private on Friday in order to heal an ethnic rift that could stall the
mammoth gathering trying to hammer out a new set of laws for the nation.
The Loya Jirga, or Grand Assembly, descended into chaos a day earlier
after an estimated 200 ethnic minority members of the 502 delegates
refused to vote on amendments to the draft charter. The 502-delegate
gathering began on 14 December and was expected to last 6-10 days. But it
has yet to ratify the country's 160-article post-conflict constitution as
it entered its twentieth day on Friday. The event is costing foreign
donors about US $50,000 per day to stage.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=38678&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN 


AFGHANISTAN: Loya Jirga to move to a vote on the constitution

Following 16 days of debate and discussion at the Afghan Constitutional
Loya Jirga (CLJ), the 502-member UN-supervised meeting was called on to
move towards voting on a final draft of the constitution as the open forum
at the meeting resumed on Tuesday. The CLJ was divided into 50-member
working groups and then, over the last five days, a reconciliation
committee which coordinated differing opinions and added them to the final
draft, according to the CLJ chairman. Amendments and changes had been
effected to about 30 articles of the 160-article draft; the final draft
would be re-examined, then ratified by secret ballot on Tuesday, said
Sibghatullah Mujaddidi, the chairman of the CLJ.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=38640&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN 


PAKISTAN: Focus on the governance impact of Musharraf's vote of confidence

The unprecedented vote of confidence taken by Pakistani president Pervez
Musharraf on January 1 would mean a continuation of the policies that were
initiated and then followed during Musharraf's period as military ruler,
according to a former president of Pakistan. "This vote of confidence, as
the legitimisation of Musharraf's government, would mean a continuation of
those policies in a more determined and more sustainable manner," Farooq
Ahmed Khan Leghari, who served as president of Pakistan from 1993 to 1997,
told IRIN in the capital, Islamabad on Friday.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=38691&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN 


PAKISTAN: Natural gas stations break environment laws

The Pakistan Environment Protection Agency (PEPA) is in touch with
licensing authorities to determine how 20 to 25 compressed natural gas
(CNG) filling stations had been set up in the capital, Islamabad, without
PEPA clearance certificates, according to an official. "We are in touch
with the concerned authorities and also with the owners of the gas
stations," Asif Shuja Khan, the PEPA director-general, told IRIN in
Islamabad on Wednesday. "If these gas stations are discovered to be
defaulters, we will take action against them," he said. The Pakistan
Environmental Protection Act, 1997, makes it mandatory for any projects
deemed to produce adverse environmental effects to seek approval from
environmental protection agencies before they can be set up.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=38674&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN 


PAKISTAN: Supreme Court legalises "free-will" marriages

Pakistan's highest court of law, the Supreme Court of Pakistan, ruled
earlier this month that an adult Muslim female was entitled marry any man
of her own free will without having to obtain the consent of her wali, or
guardian. In its judgment, the court observed that a Muslim female, on
reaching the age of 18 years, was not required to seek the permission of
her guardian or father to enter into a valid contract of nikah, or
marriage, and that an attestation by the couple was sufficient proof of
marriage. The verdict has overturned the ruling of a provincial court, in
two separate decisions in 1997, confirming that marriage without the
approval of a guardian was invalid.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=38641&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN 


PAKISTAN: 4,000 strong force to police capital from Tuesday

About 4,000 policemen will be deployed from Tuesday in the Pakistani
capital, Islamabad, as part of extraordinary measures to ensure the safety
of visiting heads of state, including Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari
Vajpayee, during next week's South Asian Association for Regional
Cooperation (SAARC) summit. "Tighter security will mean every vehicle will
be checked on VIP roads [leading up to places] where most dignitaries will
be staying," Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, the information minister, told IRIN in
Islamabad. "This is the need of the time," he added. On Sunday, Interior
Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat told a press conference that Islamabad would
be sealed off completely from Tuesday to ensure foolproof security
arrangements during the summit, which is to be held between 4 and 6
January, preceded by a SAARC foreign ministers' meeting on 2 and 3
January. The foreign secretaries of the seven SAARC member countries -
Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal and the Maldives -
are scheduled to meet on 31 December and 1 January.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=38626&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN 


CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap

Uzbekistan and Tajikistan on Monday signed water and energy supply deals
and discussed other long standing issues in an effort to improve strained
relations. The visiting Tajik Prime Minister, Akil Akilov, reached
agreement with his Uzbek counterpart Shavkat Mirziyayev on mutual energy
and water supplies for 2004. Tajikistan relies heavily on Uzbek gas and
fuel supplies while Uzbekistan's cotton industry, one of the essential
sectors in the economy, depends on water coming down from the Pamir
Mountains in Tajik territory.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=38694&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=CENTRAL_ASIA 


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