Gujarat refugees 'scared to return home'

About 35,000 people fled their homes after the riots

By Adam Mynott BBC South Asia Correspondent

There are more than 100 makeshift refugee camps dotted around the state of Gujarat.

The few people who leave the camps in Ahmedabad to return to their homes and shops are attacked

Convenor of a refugee camp

In some, many thousands of mainly Muslim refugees have been sheltering for the past few weeks.

In others, just a handful of people are living under hastily erected shelters, and in community halls and school buildings.

The hygiene and living conditions in most of the encampments are appalling.

New attacks feared

The Gujarat state government is supplying some food and water.

Many in the camps have nowhere else to go

Rice and vegetables are delivered to the camps, and the inhabitants are given some protection by police from further attacks.

But new outbreaks of violence over the past few days have caused more refugees to seek shelter, and the wretched state of people driven from their homes by hatred and fear belies the description of "normalcy" given by the Chief Minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi, before the weekend.

"The few people who leave the camps in Ahmedabad to return to their homes and shops are attacked," the convenor of a camp in the Dudheshwar region of Ahmedabad, Inamul Haq, said.

"It is difficult for them to return to their normal lives - they are scared to try to start again."

Continuing violence

The first meeting of the all-party state committee, headed by Gujarat Governor SS Bhandari to look into the provision of help in the makeshift camps has taken place, but no-one expects the plight of the refugees to improve quickly.

The government was accused of failing to curb the violence

The meeting discussed providing people with compensation to help them rebuild their homes and businesses.

The Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, is due to be at the next meeting later this week, during a planned visit to the state.

Chief Minister Narendra Modi has now said the camps can remain in place as long as necessary, reversing an earlier statement that he wanted them wound up as soon as possible.

But it would be impossible to close the camps down quickly.

There are an estimated 35,000 people, mostly Muslims, taking refuge - many with nowhere else to go.

And large areas of Ahmedabad are still under curfew at night, and some areas like Gomtipur are under indefinite curfew.

Even though large numbers of police and paramilitary army personnel are patrolling the streets the continuing violence has shown they cannot guarantee the safety of victimised minorities.