Swatis Flock to Increasingly Crowded Refugee Camps
Hundreds of Thousands Displaced in Latest Offensive
Hundreds of thousands of civilians have been chased out of the Swat Valley by the Pakistani military offensive, and many are flocking to the increasingly crowded and ill-equipped refugee camps set up for them. The UN says it is expecting that most of the people chased out of the region will stay with relatives or friends, which may be part of why the camps don’t seem up to the task of housing so many displaced persons.
The refugees will be facing the squalid conditions for an indefinite period of time, for while the government has been lauding the success and the body tolls of its latest offensive, President Asif Ali Zardari has vowed to see every single militant in the region killed, and says that the operation will only end when the situation returns to normal. Zardari has promised to keep the civilian toll to a minimum, yet to him that means “we don’t want to make one million dead.”
But while killing the thousands of members of the assorted militant factions in the valley is no small task, particularly when the government only recently had given up on a military solution, the real damage done the government’s credibility may be in the form of enraged civilians, driven from their homes and in many cases, killed.
The exact civilian toll is unclear, in no small part because the military has barred journalists from entering the region. The only non-official reports coming out had been in the form of a handful of Swati journalists who were inside when the invasion began, but the last one, a TV journalist, fled today because of security concerns.
Pakistan Pounds Swat, Over One Million Refugees Registered -- News from Antiwar.com
May 14th, 2009 at 7:25 pm
[...] The bad news doesn’t stop there. Another 500,000 IDPs are waiting to be formally registered. On top of that, another million civilians are trapped inside the Swat Valley because of the military’s curfew. Minister Hussain tried to tout the military’s success in reclaiming parts of the tiny Buner district, a small consolation for the millions of lives ruined by the offensive. [...]
Pakistan Army Pounds Swat, Over One Million Refugees Registered « Dr Nasir Khan
May 15th, 2009 at 1:02 am
[...] The bad news doesn’t stop there. Another 500,000 IDPs are waiting to be formally registered. On top of that, another million civilians are trapped inside the Swat Valley because of the military’s curfew. Minister Hussain tried to tout the military’s success in reclaiming parts of the tiny Buner district, a small consolation for the millions of lives ruined by the offensive. [...]