New Alipurduar camp as Assam exodus continues

SNS, Siliguri, 29 December 2014: The Alipurduar district administration has set up a new relief camp at the Sahebpara Primary School in Kumargram block after 50 Assam carnage victims, including 24 women and 22 children, sought shelter in Bengal. Also, 28 more Assam victims have taken shelter at the Madhya Haldibari relief camp.

A total of 1,385 people are now taking shelter in five relief camps in the Kumargram block. Yesterday, the total number was 1,307 in four camps. Police and intelligence sources said thousands of people from Assam have taken shelter in their relatives’ houses in north Bengal after the massacre in Kokrajhar district in lower Assam recently.

A senior administrative officer also admitted that some people, who had taken shelter in the relatives’ houses, might have decided to shift to relief camps following adequate arrangements made by the state government. However, some victims in the camps, mainly women and children, have started falling ill. Around a dozen Assam victims, including pregnant women, were admitted to the Kamakshaguri block health centre and discharged later. Two children and three others, including two women, are still undergoing treatment there.

“We have identified one pregnant woman in an advance stage out of the nearly eight of them. The woman is presently at the Changmari relief camp. A medical team is regularly visiting all the four relief camps and checking the health of the people there,” Kamakshaguri block medical officer (health) Dr Krishnendu Thakur said.

“The medical team will visit the newly set up relief camp at Sahebpara relief camp tomorrow morning,” he added.

Kumargram block development officer Siladitya Chakraborty said: “A fresh team of 50 people arrived today and we have set up a new relief camp at the Sahebpara Primary School. We distributed all relief materials including dry food this evening.”

“We will start distributing cooked food from tomorrow,” Mr Chakraborty said over phone from the relief camp. According to him, another group of 28 people from Assam have taken shelter in another relief camp at Madhya Haldibari.