Paktika earthquake victims claim aid distribution process is unfair 

Some of the victims of the recent earthquake in Paktika have said the aid distribution process is unfair and that only a limited amount of aid has reached the intended victims.

Some residents of Gayan district, whose houses were destroyed in the deadly earthquake last month, have called on the government to be transparent in the process. 

“With this aid nothing can be done, because I want to rebuild one room which costs 100,000 Afghani but so far even 5,000 Afghanis have not been donated to us, you can’t build a room with 5,000 Afghani,” said Mohammad Hassain, a resident of Gayan district.

Another resident said that cash aid was only being given to victims with contacts. 

“No one heard our voice, we visited many times, even today, cash aid came and they were registering it, but it was given only to those who had links, but while our houses were destroyed, no one gave us money,” said Omar Khan, another resident of the district. 

A number of other residents of Gayan district say that the people of this district have suffered huge financial losses in addition to the human casualties and that help to rebuild houses is what is needed. 

“Gayan district has a very narrow area, but the people who live here are many, and the government should distribute land to the people in Paktika or other provinces, and the high casualties are due to the large number of people in the small area,” said Zafar Khan, a resident of Gayan district. 

“Currently, if people are not helped to rebuild their houses, our people do not have the economic capacity to rebuild their houses,” said Daoud Khan Haqmal, another resident of Gayan district. 

Officials distributing aid in the area meanwhile acknowledge that there have been some problems but say in order to be transparent they are working with Imams from local mosques and tribal elders to distribute the aid. 

“The process is transparent as much as possible, but there are some problems, for example, one or two houses in an area were destroyed and we could not handle it properly, but all the aid is distributed according to the arranged list, and nothing is given to anyone by links, it is given only to those which are listed through Mullah Imam or tribal elders,” said Sayed Hassan, who is responsible for distributing aid to the victims in Gayan district.

Government has said however that it is trying to provide basic assistance to the victims who need to rebuild their houses. 

On June 21 a 6.1-magnitude earthquake hit the Spera district in Khost province in  eastern Afghanistan. Over 1,000 people were killed and at least 3,000 more were injured while thousands of houses were destroyed across Paktika and Khost provinces.

The most affected districts were Gayan, Barmal, and Ziruk districts in Paktika province and Spera in Khost.