By NNN-IRIN
Kathmandu : Strikes and political violence in southern Nepal have been hampering efforts by aid workers to distribute aid to flood victims, said officials from the Nepal Red Cross Society (NRCS).
Over 583,000 flood victims in the country’s densely populated Terai region continue to be affected by food shortages and face accommodation problems, according to the NRCS, the country’s most active relief organisation.
“The current political situation has greatly restricted our movements and affected the work of our rescuers,” Sanjeev Kafle, director of an NRCS disaster unit, told IRIN.
Over the past few months, Madhesi activists have been demonstrating for greater political rights and regional autonomy in the Terai region. Local human rights activists, however, said they feared the violence had got worse and that aid workers felt threatened.
Dozens of local and international aid agencies have been providing assistance, but they have had difficulty accessing vehicles for rescuing people and sending in supplies because of strikes by Madhesi protesters, led by Janatantrik Terai Mukti Morcha (JTMM), aid agencies said.
UN and non-governmental organisations have been appealing to the JTMM to allow unhindered access to flood victims, but despite its leaders’ positive response, fears among aid workers, especially those who happen to be from the rival ethnic Padhesi (hill people) community, persist.
The problem is most acute in the flood-affected districts of Sarlahi, Mohattari, Dhanusa and Saptari where the JTMM has been organising strikes over the past six days, the NRCS said.
Floods and landslides have affected nearly 50 of Nepal’s 75 districts, killing around 146 people and displacing 22,000 families. Over 46,000 houses have been damaged and more than 130,000 hectares of arable land have been ruined, according to the NRCS.
In the past couple of days over 16 people have also died in landslides in Gulmi, Pyuthan and Rukum districts in the northwest of the country.