Kashmir prized but little aided

Most families sleep outside, exposed to the cold. Food is running low. Faqir Mohman Sharif, an elderly farmer, walks to Kamelkote each morning for aid. Every evening, he walks back to Madian emptyhanded. Since his eyesight is bad, he simply sits and hopes someone will bring him aid. Back home, his two surviving children have gone without food for three days.

Sadly, these may be the fortunate ones.

In Pakistani-controlled Kashmir, young men stood by the side of the road leading to the town of Bagh in the hail and rain. Convoys passed through, but didn't stop, even as people held out their hands, yelling to get the drivers' attention.

Much of what aid is coming into the area appears to be from individuals and private aid groups. One man simply loaded his car with bread and handed it out. Religious groups from as far away as Karachi and Lahore have trucked in goods.

The majority appear to be with Jamaat i Islami. Amid the chaos of jammed roads and no electricity, they are filling a vacuum. "Jamaat i-Islami has had lots of people and they've sent them here to help us," says Rasheed Ahmed, a young man standing near the road. "They brought us food. They were the only ones who came to our village. No one else bothers to stop for us."

The most pressing need, he says, is tents. "We have blankets and food. But without tents, those don't matter, because it's so cold and wet."

The Jamaat representative in nearby Dihrkot, Mohammed Sayeed Joshua, directs matters from his pharmacy, which is still open. He says his group is the only one with a consistent presence in the area, and complains that aid trucks are going city to city, bypassing the villages. He is particularly concerned about the weather, as snow is expected within a month. "On days like today - look at this hail," he says, "people have to be like animals, living under the trees."

But, he adds, "We are happy with America. Before now, we thought they would just come and bomb us. Now, we know the Americans are [here] and trying to help."

On the Indian side of Kashmir's Line of Control, as the border is known, Army trucks were on the road. India has some 400,000 troops in Kashmir. But Thursday, along the road to Kamelkote, Army trucks were going post to post, carrying no supplies. In Kamelkote, a medical center had been set up, but the supplies were from private groups; the Army was there to provide security.

In Madian, Nazar Din pulled two of his children, 4-year old son Busharat and 1-year-old daughter Nazia, from the rubble of his three-story stone house. The bodies of his two children were found in fetal positions, their hands crossed as if in prayer. "God's hand has brought this," he says, his eyes welling with tears. "What can we do?"

His neighbor, Nazir Fatima, says most relief is bottlenecked in cities that have roads. The aid is given to elders who promise to take it to villages like Madian, but the aid doesn't come. "The blankets and tents come to Kamelkote, and the elders promise to distribute it, but they give it to their relatives. Meanwhile, we sit in the open all night without blankets," she says.

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