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: "mailto:arivas@iom.int" target="_blank" title=
"">arivas@iom.int

or

Katsui Kaya

Tel. +93 (0) 700 18596

E-mail: "mailto:kkaya@iom.int" target="_blank" title=
"">kkaya@iom.int