ISLAMABAD, 2 November 2005 — Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz yesterday rejected concerns that the presence of NATO personnel in Pakistan posed a security risk to the country.
Speaking in the National Assembly, Aziz said such fears were unfounded. A team of NATO engineers and doctors is assisting in relief and reconstruction efforts in areas affected by the Oct. 8 earthquake.
“Pakistan is a sovereign nation and the presence of 1,000 (NATO) men cannot pose any security threat to the country,” Aziz said, expressing his gratitude to NATO for supporting relief efforts.
Mainstream opposition parties, including the six-party religious-political alliance of Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), have strongly opposed NATO’s presence, saying the government has opened the door to foreign intervention.
NATO engineers, meanwhile, moved into the quake-hit zone of Azad Kashmir to assess the damage and help with the clean-up. They are expected, among other things, to clear roads, purify the water and assist in the construction of temporary shelters.
The NATO medical team, which arrived in the area on Monday, was setting up a field hospital in the Bagh district.
“Despite difficult and rough terrain, the team still plans to have the field hospital constructed within a week to be able to deliver a range of sophisticated medical care to victims,” said a NATO statement issued in Islamabad.
NATO has set up mobile headquarters in Islamabad from where the Deployed Joint Task Force is coordinating disaster relief activities with the Pakistani authorities.
The government, meanwhile, issued a fresh appeal for antibiotics and painkillers. It raised the earthquake toll to 57,597 killed and nearly 79,000 injured.
The updated figures from Pakistan Federal Relief Commission brought the total official toll from the disaster to nearly 59,000 — including 1,309 confirmed deaths and 6,622 injuries on the Indian side of Kashmir.
Of those injured in Pakistan, over 29,000 were being treated in army and civil hospitals and more were in field hospitals and facilities run by non-governmental organizations, said the commission’s health chief, Maj. Gen. Abdul Qadir Usmani.
At a meeting with aid workers and donors in Islamabad, the commission asked non-governmental organizations for more coordination in the massive international relief operation.
The United Nations has complained that it has received only about 20 percent of the funds it needs for emergency relief operations and has warned the coming winter could kill as many as died in the quake unless donors provide more resources soon.
Given the number of casualties and the fact many hospitals were destroyed and medical staff killed, Maj. Gen. Usmani called on donors to keep emergency field hospitals running until March.
In a statement, the commission also called for medicines and equipment, including antibiotics, painkillers, dozens of operating tables and 100 specialist beds for spinal injuries.
The UN’s World Food Program, which says 2.3 million people need emergency food, said unless the money is forthcoming it cannot to pay for helicopters needed to position winter food stocks for survivors over the next four weeks.
On Monday, President Gen. Pervez Musharraf urged survivors in the highlands to move to lower ground for the winter, saying they would not survive in emergency tent shelters.
However aid workers say many are reluctant to leave behind crops, livestock and the remains of homes they have lived in for generations to move into lowland tent cities.
Rear Adm. Michael LeFever, commander of the US disaster relief mission in Pakistan, expressed optimism that Pakistan would get through the crisis.
“We’re going to beat this. We’re going to beat this,” he was quoted as saying by Reuters after visiting the quake zone, adding that he did not think predictions of a second wave of deaths would come to pass. “I think what they have done is to look at the worst-case, and that’s good for planning — they need to do that,” he said.
In a related announcement, one government official said quake survivors would be given about 5,000 radios in coming days to hear about relief and reconstruction efforts.
A new FM radio station being set up jointly by the University of Punjab and the United Nations Children’s Fund would provide the radios for free, the official said.
“The new FM network will start providing information to the listeners about relief and reconstruction efforts in the next couple of days,” said Syed Asif Hussain, secretary of information for the government of Azad Kashmir.
Meanwhile, national broadcaster Azad Kashmir Radio, which was destroyed in the Oct. 8 earthquake, has resumed its service. And state television would restart broadcasting this week, Hussain said.
“Pakistan Television has provided them (Kashmir state television with) an outdoor broadcasting van and they will be running live shows from there on Eid,” Hussain said.
“We believe that the revival of the electronic media here will help create an atmosphere of normality,” he said.
