Iranians remain homeless after pledges not honoured

International pledges of aid for tsunami victims are growing quickly but there is increasing concern that promises of hard cash may not be honoured.

A year after the earthquake that destroyed the Iranian city of Bam, residents are angry that the reconstruction work has not been faster and that pledged aid has not materialised. President Mohammed Khatami has said that only US$17 million ($24 million) of hard cash donations had been received although about US$1 billion ($1.4 billion) was pledged.

"I'm living in a state of limbo," said Azam, 27. His two brothers and a sister died in the disaster.

"They're about to take our prefab away because it was just emergency accommodation but they haven't given us a better one. We don't know what to do. The mayor told me he was still waiting for one, too."

The Government also faces accusations that aid money and donated equipment was misused early in the relief operation.

"People in Bam are frustrated because they still live in temporary shelters," says UN emergency relief co-ordinator Jan Egeland, adding that countries will be made to honour their pledges both for Bam and victims of the Indian Ocean tsunami.

The carnage of Bam was restricted to an area several kilometres in diameter but even now nobody knows how many of the 100,000 townspeople died under the crumbling mud-brick walls. The Government's estimate is 31,000, with tens of thousands homeless.

But international aid agencies, combined with Iranian government and private groups, are still working hard on the ground. A masterplan for redevelopment has only just been completed although reconstruction has started.

Shahzad Afkhami now lives in a prefab outside the city and the family home is being rebuilt by a Swiss charity. Other international groups are working on rural reconstruction, assisted by Iranian government loans. In the central city much of the rubble remains, a lot of it the yellow and pink brick that made Bam such a beautiful place.

Psychologists from foreign aid organisations help survivors to vent their feelings of trauma and grief. But many people have sunk into opium or heroin abuse to escape the pain. Unicef is running special psychotherapy programmes for children but adults need help too.

Schools, clinics and orphanages have risen from the dust beneath the foliage of palms and orange trees for which Bam was famous. Many are the work of Iranians who set up charities that look after as many people as they can afford. Right across the country there is a strong mood of solidarity.

Arg-e Bam, the ancient citadel that was almost exactly on the faultline - an edifice that had come to define the oasis city - is also lost forever. Where once tourists roamed there are now only archaeologists, examining the historical strata thrown open by the quake.

Their research shows evidence of a city that has survived for thousands of years through foreign invasions and murderous droughts. It is evidence that shows Bam will recover again.

- INDEPENDENT