Pakistan’s generous hosts on brink of their own displacement

Pakistan’s generous hosts on brink of their own displacement

• Culture of hospitality pushed to its limits as communities provide refuge for hundreds of thousands fleeing violence
• Hosts selling assets and sharing everything they have, risking extreme poverty and their own displacement
• A host villager agonises, “It will be easier to die than to ask displaced to leave.”

Poor communities in Pakistan’s northwest are hosting up to two million people uprooted by recent violence in the region. These communities – already among the poorest in the world – may join those displaced in days as their assets are sold to help those in need, World Vision warns.

“Families have provided refuge for up to 90 percent of those escaping the fighting,” said Graham Strong, World Vision’s Country Director in Pakistan.

“They are sharing their homes, food, clothes and water. They are poor already and are making themselves poorer in the process.”

Many assets are being sold to meet the growing need.

“As the disaster continues,” explained Strong, “hosts are having to sell their land, cattle and other assets at far less than the market value in order to keep providing for their guests.”

Cultural hospitality

As the only international aid agency providing assistance in Buner District, World Vision talked to host villagers whose limited resources are almost depleted.

They expressed a major concern that their cultural code of hospitality and compassion is being stretched to its limit and could be masking the scale of the need caused by the crisis. 

“Without urgent assistance there is a real fear that impoverished host communities could contribute to another wave of internal displacement,” said Strong.

“The cultural ethic of generosity and hospitality means hosts are now facing the agonising choice between asking guests to leave or becoming destitute and displaced themselves,” he continued.

World Vision found hosts often have little or no connection with those taking refuge in their homes.

A 59-year-old man in Buner has taken 37 people into his home. 

“Many host families have exhausted their wealth and will have to leave themselves or ask their guests to leave. It will be easier to die than to ask families to leave,” he said.

Vulnerable people

Basic services such as health, education, water and sanitation are being stretched to breaking point, World Vision learnt from its rapid assessment in Buner. It found pregnant and breastfeeding women and children under five are extremely vulnerable, with limited access to healthcare and medical supplies in one of Pakistan’s poorest communities.

To alleviate the situation, aid agencies are urging donors to fully fund appeals to allow them to address the needs of both the host communities as well as those in displacement camps.

World Vision is concerned global fundraising efforts will be impacted by the financial crisis.

“We urge the international community to follow the example of Pakistan’s communities who have demonstrated extreme generosity in the hardest of circumstances,” said Strong.

World Vision is distributing health kits, mattresses and essential household items in Buner and hopes to raise $13 million to address emergency needs of more than 200,000 people in Buner, Swabi and Mardan in northwest Pakistan.

28 May 2009