• by Ashfaq Yusufzai (peshawar)
• Tuesday, May 05, 2009
• Inter Press Service

Thousands of civilians are continuing to migrate to safer places from Upper Dir and Buner districts - the new theatres of an internal war between Pakistan’s Taliban and the military in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP).

'We fled to escape the military operation,' says Mohammad Riaz from Nowagai area in Buner where the army launched an attack on Apr. 28 to flush out Islamic militants who have infiltrated from neighbouring Swat, a volatile district.

'Our area has gone Swat’s way. It won’t be long before schools and other government buildings are demolished (by the Pakistani Taliban),' he told IPS in a phone interview from Rustam village in adjoining Mardan district.

Riaz, who was the owner of a shop in Sultanwas village, is staying with relatives in Rustam. He estimates that some 20,000 villagers from in and around Sultanwas have fled to safety.

On Feb. 16, the provincial government of the NWFP announced it had signed a peace deal with the Swat Taliban. The government agreed to implement the Nizam Adle regulation (and impose the Shariah or Islamic law) in return to their agreeing to lay down arms.

The Swat Taliban have however occupied nearby Buner district and accelerated their armed activities in Upper Dir. The U.S. has warned Islamabad that any Taliban expansion would strain relations between the two countries.

Pakistan has been plagued by internal strife in the north since the eviction of the Taliban regime from Kabul by U.S.-led foreign troops after the Sep. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington.

Afghan Taliban crossed into the lawless tribal areas of Pakistan, and continue to frustrate the Pakistani military and U.S. forces who regularly bomb the area from Afghanistan. Civilian casualties have been high. Islamabad has time and again asked Washington to stop these unmanned drone attacks but to no avail.

'The government launched an (military) operation in Buner and Dir just to show the U.S. that it was doing something,' comments Dr. Ashraf Ali, an authority on the Taliban at the University of Peshawar. 'Buner is still under Taliban control and will remain so,' he says.

The spreading conflict has added to the numbers of internally displaced people (IDPs) in Pakistan. An estimated 4 million were uprooted in the first wave of IDPs, from Bajaur and Mohmand agencies in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), last year.

Ali believes the situation could snowball into a major humanitarian crisis since the government does not have the capacity to take care of even the 90,000 IDPs living in 11 camps in the province.

The government established the camps with financial assistance from the U.N., between May and September last year, in Dir Lower, Mardan, Charsadda, Swabi, Nowshera and Peshawar.

'We are waiting to be registered at a new camp being setup in Mardan. It will be horrifying to stay in a tent in the rising temperature, but there is no other option,' says Jumaat Shah, a shopkeeper from Buner district who admits he would have rented a house if he had the money. Shah who fled to Mardan and is staying with relatives spoke to IPS over the phone.

According to reports, 30,000 families had left Upper Dir after the army operation on Apr. 27.

'About 10,000 of them are staying on the roadside without shelter. They are anxiously waiting for government’s response to their displacement', says Dr Iqbal Khalil of the Al-Khidmat Foundation, a non-governmental organisation that runs free medical camps in Dir.

'The IDPs are leaving on pick-ups and trucks in their bid to move to safer places,' according to Dr Rahim, one of the NGO’s doctors who runs a clinic in Upper Dir.

The U.N. estimates that up to one million people have been displaced in the NWFP. The World Food Programme is working on a plan to feed an estimated 600,000 IDPs.

'We have requested funds for the IDPs at a donors’ conference we took part in Geneva on Apr. 27,' says Jamil Amjad, the NWFP Relief Commissioner.

According to Sitara Ayaz, the provincial social welfare minister, 'the U.S. and its partners in the war on terror give more funds for security measures, and the IDPs are not their priority area.' Talking to IPS after the Geneva meeting, she says, 'In our province we need more support and help from the international community.'

'We are paying for a war that is being fought for someone else. We have been sandwiched between the army and the Taliban,' says Abdul Jabbar, a mechanic by profession, who is living with relatives in Peshawar after having left Dir in the wake of the military offensive there.

On Apr. 29, the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Jakob Kellenberger told a news conference in Peshawar that the humanitarian situation in the conflict-hit areas of the NWFP and FATA 'is serious (and) that is why ICRC has doubled the budget (to nearly 45 million dollars)'.

'But there are still far too many people affected by the conflict and insecurity who have insufficient access to health care and water,' he added. 'The ICRC would like to do more to help them.'

'We have already spent about 6.5 million dollars on the IDPs. A request for money from the federal government has not received a response!' Mian Iftikhar Hussain, the provincial information minister, says.

Sixty-year-old Johar Bibi, arrived in Peshawar’s Kacha Garhi camp for IDPs last week after a five-hour journey from Dir Lower. Kacha Garhi was originally set up for Afghan refugees in 1980, and had sheltered some 70,000 people till it was finally closed in April 2008. But soon, it was opened for IDPs from Bajaur agency.

Johar Bibi says she left her village, Galgot, with her grandchildren in a pick-up before the start of a military operation there.

'I have asthma, and the severe dust here has worsened my condition,' she gasps for breath as she talks to IPS outside a health centre in the camp. 'I have telephoned my son, who’s a driver in Karachi (Pakistan’s port town in the south) to come immediately.'

© Inter Press Service (2009) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service