UNHCR is to provide US$2.25 million to
support IOM's operations to facilitate the voluntary, safe and
dignified return of internally displaced persons (IDPs) from relief
camps in Pakistan's earthquake-affected areas to their home
villages and towns.

Under the agreement, which will run from April
through August, the UNHCR funds will contribute to IOM's UN Action
Plan mandate to provide medical screening and transport facilities
to quake survivors, especially vulnerable people willing to leave
the camps and go home with the onset of spring.

"We have been providing return assistance to
displaced people within the constraints of weather, road conditions
and funds. This new funding will help us speed up assistance to
those who are determined to go back home," said Islamabad-based IOM
Regional Representative Hassan Abdel Moneim Mostafa.

"People are voting with their feet, and tens
of thousands of people have already gone back to their villages,"
added Michael Zwack, UNHCR's Deputy Representative in Pakistan. "We
need to sustain the pace of returns, but at the same time, ensure
that it is conducted in a voluntary, orderly and safe way."

The funding will allow IOM to continue
providing pre-departure medical screening in camps to ensure that
passengers are fit for travel. Special travel arrangements are made
for vulnerable groups like the disabled, the elderly, pregnant
women or young children.

It will also feed into IOM's movement plan,
which optimizes orderly transport to areas of origin, based on
available data, road reconnaissance and community-based
assessments.

Since March 20th, five IOM hubs in
earthquake-affected areas - Batagram, Bagh, Balakot, Mansehra and
Muzaffarabad - have helped more than 22,000 people (over 3,000
families) to return home to their villages and towns.

On April 12th IOM began to offer returns to
quake-affected areas from the H-11 camp in Islamabad, the federal
capital, in response to a request from the Capital Development
Authority (CDA). So far, 162 families or 872 people have left the
camp with IOM to return home.

"I have lost my farmland and house in the
earthquake, but I am ready to go back. While staying in Islamabad I
won't be able to get compensation money which the government will
give us to reconstruct houses for our families," said Syed Nisar,
an H-11 resident who travelled with IOM transport to Punjkot in
Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

For more information, please contact:

Saleem Rehmat

IOM Islamabad

Tel. +92.300.856.5967

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