The language was already biblical; now the scale of what is happening matches it. The exodus of people forced from their homes in Pakistan's Swat Valley and elsewhere in the country's northwest may be as high as 2.4 million, aid officials say. Around the world, only a handful of war-spoiled countries - Sudan, Iraq, Colombia - have larger numbers of internal refugees. The speed of the displacement at its height - up to 85,000 people a day - was matched only during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. This is now one of the biggest sudden refugee crises the world has ever seen.
Until now, the worst of the problem has been kept largely out of sight. Of the total displaced by the military's operations against the Taleban, just 200,000 people have been forced to live in the makeshift tent camps dotted around the southern fringe of the conflict zone. The vast majority were taken in by relatives, extended family members and local people wanting to help. But this grassroots sense of charity is slowly starting to show real strain. In a week when the relentless danger of the militants was underlined by a massive car bomb in the city of Lahore that killed at least 30 people and injured hundreds more, aid groups have warned that the communities taking people in - already some of the planet's poorest people - could themselves be displaced as they desperately sell their few assets to help the homeless.
In these "homestay" situations, some that exist purely because of tribal links between the displaced and those opening their doors, anywhere from 10 to 15 people are crowded into one room. A single latrine is shared by, on average, 35 people. Aid groups have called for a large and immediate injection of funds to help these host families who have stood forward to help those with nothing.
Graham Strong, the country director of the charity World Vision, said: "Families have provided refuge for up to 90 percent of those escaping the fighting. They are sharing their homes, food, clothes and water. They are poor already and are making themselves poorer in the process. As the disaster continues, hosts are having to sell their land, cattle and other assets at far less than the market value to keep providing for their guests. The cultural ethic of generosity and hospitality means hosts are now facing the agonizing choice between asking guests to leave and becoming destitute and displaced themselves." Confronted by such circumstances, many of the host families of Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) have been selling cattle at a mere fraction of their normal value to raise funds. Others are pawning gold and jewelry for as little as 5 percent of what it would usually generate. Certainly, those who arrived came with nothing, depending entirely on the generosity of their hosts.
In addition to the humanitarian problem, of course, the military operation - which it claims has so far killed anywhere up to 1,100 militants - has already apparently led the Taleban into revenge attacks. After militants launched a gun and bomb attack on police and intelligence offices in Lahore last week, a spokesman for Baitullah Mehsud, one of the senior Taleban leaders, claimed responsibility and said the devastating attack - the third major incident in the Punjabi capital this year - had been carried out in response to what has been happening in Swat. The Taleban also threatened more attacks, raising the prospect of a fresh wave of suicide attacks in Pakistan's major cities. The following day, at least 14 people were killed in suicide bombings in Peshawar.
Yesterday Prime Minister Yousaf Gilani defended the decision to launch the offensive, saying that the authorities had no genuine alternative.
