survivors Thursday, December 8, amid reports that Christians have been expelled from their homes to make way for destitute Muslims.
With a bitter winter beginning, aid officials said people living in remote settlements are still experiencing the effects of the October 8 earthquake and warned it is increasingly difficult to provide them shelter and food.
Adding to the difficulties are reports that hundreds of Christian families have been expelled from their homes in Pakistan to make room for victims of the earthquake that hit especially Kashmir and the northwestern region of the country.
"We are facing a humanitarian disaster … we are in a crisis now," Reuters news agency quoted Darren Boisvert, a spokesman for the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), as saying.
Bishop Anthony Lobo of Islamabad-Rawalpindi, Pakistan, told Catholic news media that the Pakistani government evicted Christians as part of efforts to house some 3 million people left homeless by the disaster.
FAMILIES EVICTED
He reportedly said he knew of at least 40 families, or about 200 people, who had been evicted around Joharabad, near Karachi." All the people are being thrown out, all of them are Christians," he told Catholic news agencies "There is a lot of land which the government has at its disposal, but they (government officials) prefer to select a place that is already developed," the bishop was quoted as saying.
"Their mentality is like this: Why plant a sapling and wait for it to bear fruit when you can select another tree that is already bearing fruit?" He added that Christians are "the most vulnerable people" and "very poor and are easy targets."
Christians and Muslims living in tents also face difficulties. This week a candle set fire to a tent which was housing some of the survivors of the 8 October earthquake in Pakistan, killing seven members of the same family, including four children. Police said the fire occurred on Tuesday in the Manshera district in the north of Pakistan.
The forced evictions of Christians came amid claims that the 5 million-strong Christian minority in Pakistan is being persecuted.
CHURCHES ATTACKED
In mid-November three churches in Sangla Hill, near Lahore, were reportedly destroyed by a mob of 3,000 people who also attacked two schools, a hostel and a convent after it was alleged that a Christian had burned pages of the Quran, the sacred book of Islam.
Over $5 billion has reportedly been pledged by international donors to the relief operation in the ftermath of the magnitude 7.6 earthquake. Human rights groups have expressed concern however that much of the aid will not be distributed among Pakistan’s Christian minority.
Pakistani bishops sent teams of volunteers to search for survivors that have paid for the construction of an orphanage for earthquake victims. (With reports from Pakistan)
