IOM is deploying two Rapid Response Teams to assess and respond to
the needs of families displaced by military operations in Swat,
Buner and Dir in Pakistan and who are living in out-of-camp
settlements.

According to authorities, only 20 per cent of displaced families
are living in camps with the remaining 80 per cent living with
relatives or friends, in public or private buildings, community
guesthouses, rental accommodation or in spontaneous informal
settlements.

The teams, which will be deployed early next week, will carry
out need assessments, provide technical assistance for shelter
support, collect and coordinate information with humanitarian
partners and help distribute relief goods to vulnerable displaced
families.

"Learning from our past experience following the 2005
earthquake, the Rapid Response Teams will, by working on the ground
among the displaced, provide a clearer picture on how best to
respond to urgent needs of the displaced. This will not only
benefit our work, but also that of other humanitarian partners
responding to this enormous displacement crisis," says IOM Head of
Emergency and Stabilization Programme in Pakistan, Brian Kelly.
"But we need to have many more of these teams and for that, we need
funds."

IOM is appealing for USD 14.7 million to carry out projects on
healthcare, psychosocial support, security awareness, shelter and
non-food items (NFIs), infrastructure and rehabilitation support,
and awareness-raising on human trafficking in areas affected by the
conflict.

Eleven IOM Rapid Response Teams, which started operations in
earthquake-affected areas of Pakistan in 2006, saved a number of
lives in emergencies, trained thousands of villagers and volunteers
in disaster preparedness, provided risk assessments for 1,200
remote and high altitude villages, and distributed relief items to
vulnerable families.

For those families living in 26 camps in Mardan, Charsadda,
Peshawar, Nowshera, Lower Dir and Malakand districts in North West
Frontier Province (NWFP) set up for people recently displaced, IOM
has so far contributed 141 truckloads of non-food relief supplies.
These include 800 tents, 20,000 fleece blankets, 40,000 quilts,
57,500 sleeping mats, 30,000 jerry cans, 20,000 mosquito nets,
20,000 plastic buckets, 8,000 kitchen sets and 20,000 kgs of
soap.

According to NWFP authorities, the number of newly registered
internally displaced people has increased to 2.5 million. This is
in addition to another 553,916 people registered displaced in the
Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), bringing the total
number to more than three million since August 2008.

This figure is likely to increase with officials of the Special
Support Group set up by the government quoted in local media as
saying that an estimated 300,000 people are trapped in Swat
Valley's Miandam, Madyan, Bahrain, Kalam and Mingora towns. That
figure represents 20 per cent of the total population of the
area.

For further information, please contact:

Saleem Rehmat

IOM Islamabad

Tel: +92 300 856 03 41

E-mail: "mailto:srehmat@iom.int">srehmat@iom.int