Monsoon threatens Pakistan's internally displaced - U.N.

By Jason Subler

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - The looming arrival of monsoon rains in Pakistan threatens to bring more misery to the nearly 2 million people displaced by the government's battle with militants in the northwest, U.N. officials said on Thursday.

Some 270,000 families have fled their homes since the army began an offensive against Taliban militants in their Swat valley bastion in late April, most of them living with family or friends in "host communities", according to the United Nations.

The annual monsoon, which could be stronger than normal this year, might complicate an already challenging situation there and in camps where the remaining 13 percent of internally displaced people (IDPs) are living, said Martin Mogwanja, humanitarian coordinator for the United Nations in Pakistan.

The United Nations is working on plans to deal with the possibilities of an accelerated spread of disease and disruptions to the distribution of supplies as a result of the rains, Mogwanja said.

"But we will also need possibly additional resources. There maybe have to be some camps or parts of camps that will have to be moved," he said, since most lie in flood-prone parts of North West Frontier Province.

One acute threat is that if water supplies are contaminated diarrhoea -- already the biggest health problem in the camps -- could become even more severe, said Eric Laroche, Assistant Director General of Health Action in Crises with the World Health Organisation.

"Also, it may lead to a lot of epidemics, and that is a major concern for us," Laroche said.