Hazara Nation

IOM this week provided shelter materials to 21 vulnerable families displaced by the threat of a rock fall in Bamyan province.

The materials which include iron beams, metal doors and windows, will allow each family to build a new two-room home on land provided by the government several hundred meters above their old houses.

The aid is part of IOM's humanitarian assistance programme, which is currently also active in Kabul, Nangahar, Laghman, Herat, Kandahar, Kunduz, Ghor, Gardez, Badakhshan, Farah and Balkh provinces.

The programme, which provides emergency aid to people displaced by natural disasters or conflict, and vulnerable returnees from neighbouring countries, is implemented in close collaboration with the government, and funded by the UN Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF), Japan and the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

"This is a responsive programme, and we are ready to expand our activities with our partners wherever there is a need to help internally displaced people," says IOM Afghanistan Chief of Mission Robbie Thomson.

IOM works with the Afghanistan National Disaster Management Authority, the Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation, provincial and district government, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) and other UN agencies to identify people most in need, before activating a rapid response mechanism that procures, warehouses and delivers non-food relief items.

Over the past year, which saw one of the harshest winters in decades, IOM humanitarian interventions have been triggered by large-scale deportations of undocumented labour migrants and their families from Iran, and the return of a growing number of refugees to Afghanistan's eastern provinces from Pakistan.

The programme has distributed 7,352 household kits, 5,000 agricultural kits, 3,435 winter kits, 6,678 clothing items and 2,025 shelter kits. It has also provided transportation assistance for 342 families.

As the leading inter-governmental organization in the field of migration, IOM promotes humane and orderly migration for the benefit of all. In Afghanistan, IOM also facilitates long-term return and reintegration to and within Afghanistan, stabilizes migrant communities through sustainable development in the context of long periods of mass population displacement, and works with Afghan government institutions to manage migration and build capacity.

For further information, please contact:

Althea Rivas
IOM Kabul
Tel. + 93 (0) 700 486728
E-mail: arivas@iom.int
or

Katsui Kaya
Tel. +93 (0) 700 18596
E-mail: kkaya@iom.int