By ABDUL SATTAR
The Associated Press
Friday, December 29, 2006; 12:12 PM
MURID BUGTI, Pakistan -- Shah Mohammed Bugti says his 9-month-old son has died and his daughter may soon follow if humanitarian aid does not reach tens of thousands of desperate tribesmen who fled a civil conflict in Pakistan's tense southwest.
The 22-year-old Bugti and the others have been uprooted by fighting between government troops and ethnic Baluch rebels in the vast desert of Baluchistan province, the scene of long-running unrest over autonomy and control of royalties from its natural gas fields.
Speaking in a fetid, sprawling camp of huts and flimsy tents in a roadside field where dozens of barefoot and thin children scurry about in dusty lanes, Bugti said, "It seems that we have been living in hell for the past one year."
Tribal leaders say at least 76 people, most of them children, have died in the settlements the past three months from cold weather and malnutrition.
The conflict in Baluchistan, Pakistan's biggest and poorest province, is a largely forgotten one. Western nations are more concerned about Taliban militants believed to be staging attacks from border regions of Baluchistan into Afghanistan where NATO forces operate.
Pakistan's government wants to develop the resource-rich region but has alienated the local Baluch population by its use of military force, and there is growing evidence the fighting has had a grave impact on displaced civilians.
Bugti, who according to custom takes the name of his tribe, the Bugti, said his baby boy died of cold earlier this month. Now, his 1-year-old daughter is seriously ill for lack of food, medicine and proper shelter.
"It gets extremely cold at night," Bugti said. "We will all die without aid."
A survey by U.N. Children's Fund has counted 84,000 displaced people, including 26,000 women and 33,000 children, and recommended a $1 million emergency relief program. The government approved the plan last week, but only after months of stalling.
The survey, conducted in August, found 28 percent of the refugee children were suffering acute malnutrition and about 6 percent could die without immediate help.
Ronald Van Dijk, a senior UNICEF program officer, said last week it was likely some of those children had since died.
UNICEF plans to set up 57 feeding stations with local health workers in three districts of Baluchistan by next month, he said. Refugees will also get tents, sanitation and health care.
For the past year, life has been miserable for the ethnic Baluch refugees arriving from Dera Bugti and Kohlu, districts at the center of the conflict between government troops and armed rebels of the Bugti and Marri tribes.
More than 30,000 people are crowded into two camps _ one for Bugti tribesmen, the other for Marri tribesmen _ in desert terrain at Murid Bugti, about 160 miles east of the Baluchistan capital, Quetta. Refugees claim local administrators have prevented Pakistani charities from sending aid, which the government denies.
Over the past three months, at least 61 Marri refugees, most of them children, have died because of the effects of malnutrition, weather and other hardships, said Ahsanullah Marri, a village mayor from Kohlu district. Camp residents said at least 15 Bugti refugees also died.
The refugees say they want to go home but accuse the government of blocking them.
Many in the Bugti camp accuse the government of settling hundreds of people from other tribes in their home district to neutralize the influence of an anti-government tribal chief, Nawab Akbar Bugti, who was killed in a military operation in August.
"The government is our enemy," said refugee Nawaz Bugti, 24. "I will prefer to die than ask the government for help."
Some camp residents said security forces had targeted them. A spokesman for the Baluchistan provincial government, Abdul Raziq Bugti, denied the charges, saying security forces target only "anti-state elements" in Dera Bugti.
Hundreds of Bugti and Marri militiamen are waging a guerrilla war, attacking security forces and sabotaging electricity and gas infrastructure.
Human rights activists and opposition politicians have urged the government to resolve the crisis through negotiations, but Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, has said rebels will be dealt with by force unless they lay down their arms.