ISLAMABAD: Pakistan is facing one of the world’s worst displacement crises, with aid workers struggling to reach many of the two million people who have fled fighting, a top UN official said yesterday.
Rashid Khalikov, director of the UN humanitarian office in New York, appealed for more funds to help the massive numbers crammed into dusty camps or in relatives’ homes, seeking refuge from an anti-Taleban assault. “I would say that it is one of the worst displacement crises,” said Khalikov, who is currently visiting Pakistan.
Pakistan’s military launched a blistering offensive against Taleban positions in the northwest districts of Lower Dir and Buner in late April and in Swat early this month, in a bid to “eliminate” the Islamist hard-liners.
The UN refugee agency said late Monday that 1.45 million people have fled and registered with authorities since May 2, joining more than 550,000 people displaced by similar battles last year. “I think we are still trying to catch up with this increasing number of people,” said Khalikov.
Pakistan said yesterday it was racing to help refugees fleeing the offensive. The humanitarian challenge comes as the military said its troops are fighting street battles against insurgents in key towns in Swat Valley.
A local mayor in the Lower Dir district threatened to rise against the military troops if the “indiscriminate firing and bombardment that mainly kills the civilians” was not stopped. “This operation is only killing the civilians. On one side the government has held the people in the conflict zone by imposing indefinite curfew, and on the other hand it is making no distinction between the civilian and militant targets,” said Ahmad Hassan.
“If things continue this way, let alone Taleban, we will ourselves rise against them (the military),” the district mayor added.
The statement came as the helicopter gunships pounded two villages around Timar Girah, the main town in Lower Dir. “We are getting information from the locals here that some civilians have been killed. The numbers are not known yet. We can see the smoke the rising from the villages,” a local journalist Haroon Rashid said over phone from Timar Girah.
The action came a day after some one dozen people, including women and children, were killed and scores of others were injured when families fleeing the military operation, were attacked by a helicopter gunships. The English-language daily The News, citing eyewitnesses, reported yesterday that the helicopter also fired at those who tried to help the victims. At that stage, people fled and abandoned the dead and injured.
