Children of border villages fall victim to Indo-Pakistan war tensions

DATELINE: JAMMU, India, May 21

With an empty stomach, dry eyes and unkempt hai2r, Seema stands barefoot near the Marheen High School in the southern Kashmir town of Kathua, watching every passerby with the hope of getting food.

Even when local administration officials arrived with food packets, Seema remained hungry as her parents did not have the utensils needed for cooking.

"They should have provided us cooked food. We have had to flee with hardly any belongings," said Amro Devi, one of more than 12,000 people who have left their homes to escape the barrage of artillery shells being fired at each other by Indian and Pakistani troops. Nearly 1,600 families have taken refuge at Kathua, 65 kilometres (40 miles) from Indian-controlled Kashmir's winter capital Jammu, with only the most basic necessities, such as bedrolls, clothes and their kitchenware.

Children are suffering the most as they are forced to stop going to school and live the life of refugees in temporary shelters.

"During the last four years, we have migrated three times, and every time the studies of our children have suffered," said Prakash, another victim.

On Thursday, when the local children went to school, many were greeted with the sight of displaced people taking shelter inside and cattle grazing outside the premises.

Mats were strewn on the floors and their blackboards were in pieces. There was no room for them to study in the school.

Yet again, the future of the schoolchildren in the border areas has been put in peril by the intensified firing between the Indian and Pakistani troops on the border.

Tension has escalated rapidly in Kashmir following an attack by Islamic rebels on an Indian army camp in Jammu a week ago that left 35 people dead.

The slaughter triggered a sharp deterioration in relations between India and Pakistan and saw Islamabad's high commissioner (ambassador) to New Delhi being given his marching orders on Saturday.

There appears no sign of an early breakthrough, with New Delhi sending Defence Minister George Fernandes and the country's top military brass to the tense western border with Pakistan for a two-day study of the security situation there.

The local administration seems at a loss of knowing how to deal with the problem of the displaced families and their children.

Police Deputy Commissioner of Kathua B.D. Sharma said that they had no option but to close schools for students in the ninth standard, in which students are aged around 14.

"But we will not disrupt the class work of 10th, 11th and 12th standard (for ages between 15 and 17 years)," he added.

The local administration also has to cope with helpless infants and very small children, many of whom are ill.

"My 35-day-old daughter is facing problems here as the temperature is very high. If we are forced to live here much longer it may create some serious trouble for us," said another displaced person, Shanti Devi.

She migrated to the camp in Kathua on May 18 from her village Sher Parpain due to the ongoing shelling.

Shanti is not the only mother concerned about her children, who are trying to survive without fresh water, medicine and other facilities.

"In case of any emergency, where will we go?" asked one mother.