Asia-Pacific, Headlines, Human Rights, Migration & Refugees

PAKISTAN: Taliban Stop Civilians From Leaving

Ashfaq Yusufzai

PESHAWAR, May 8 2009 (IPS) - Thousands of people are stranded in violence-wracked Swat and Buner districts in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) because the Pakistan Taliban have refused to allow them passage to safer places.

"Taliban are using civilians as human shields. They aren’t letting people through the checkpoints in Kanju, Matta and Khwazakhela in Swat," the district coordination officer (DCO) Swat, Khushhal Khan told IPS over telephone.

He says thousands of women, children and men, are waiting by the roadside near Mingora city, the district headquarters, after a massive operation by the Pakistan military was launched on May 5 to flush out Islamic fighters in Buner, Swat and some areas in the nearby Dir district.

On Feb 16, the provincial government signed a peace deal with the Tehreek-e-Taliban in return for the imposition of Shariah courts in Malakand division which includes Swat. Instead of laying down their arms, the Swat Taliban occupied Buner, an adjacent district, in the last two weeks.

"We expected a million people would be displaced by the ongoing military operation but Taliban aren’t permitting them to go outside Buner and Swat," the NWFP’s Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain told reporters in Peshawar, the provincial capital.

"We walked for eight hours from Pir Baba to Rustam. Taliban wanted us to stay because they want the people to be a buffer in the army operation," says Aman Gul, a revenue department officer, who has taken shelter with relatives in Rustam village in nearby Mardan district.

"We are caught between Taliban and the army," says Nisar Ali of Jowar Bazar, near Pir Baba shrine in Buner. Describing his family’s escape, he says "we came out of the house very secretly on Tuesday and when we reached Natyan (on the way to Mardan), there was heavy shelling that caused us to stay in the hills for more than four hours."

He claims there is a severe food crisis, and an acute shortage of vehicles to transport people to safety. "My son-in-law, daughter and their three sons are stranded in Sultanwas locality. The Taliban weren’t permitting them to leave," says Omar Farooq, 55, who reached Peshawar on Thursday and is looking for a house to rent.

People are suffering, he told IPS in an interview. There is no electricity, no fuel and no water. "That’s no life," he asserts.

On May 4, the Pakistan army spokesman, Maj Gen Athar Abbas, told media in Peshawar that Taliban in Buner were using civilians as human shields.

The government has set up camps for the internally displaced, says Swat DCO Khan.

Rahim Gul, 55, a shopkeeper from Swari, Buner, is in a camp in Mardan. He told IPS: "I am terribly concerned about the lives of my family members. I had left them in Swari to look after business there when I left five days back. Now I can’t get them here because of Taliban’s reluctance."

However, Swat Taliban spokesman, Muslim Khan, denies they are preventing people from leaving Swat and Buner.

"We are immensely concerned about the people. It is the government which has caused the problem by resorting to military operation," he is quoted by the media in Peshawar as saying.

According to eyewitness accounts, because of curfew, people are waiting inside their houses in Buner and Swat to leave for safer places.

"There is complete breakdown of civic facilities. A lot of civilians who have died in the past two days are still awaiting burial," says a local journalist, who fled Swat, Wednesday night, and did not want to be identified.

"Bazars are completely closed. There is no activity. Children are weeping for water and food. All (people) are in a state of insecurity," he adds. According to the journalist, all Swat’s reporters have escaped to safety.

Heavy fighting is reported between the security forces and Taliban. The army has retaken Swat’s famous emerald mines from the Islamic militants.

"Petrol stations have run dry," says Javid Ahmed, a student at the Swari Degree College who is staying with friends at the University of Peshawar. He told IPS that his parents had to stay back because the Taliban would not let them leave.

The plight of civilians caught in the fighting between the military and Taliban has been widely reported. This week in Washington, U.S. President Barack Obama has held meetings with his counterparts from Afghanistan and Pakistan and the breakdown of government control in Pakistan’s border areas has been on the agenda.

Pakistan’s home-grown Taliban troubles have sparked the biggest internal displacement of civilians seen since the flight of refugees in 1971 from what then became Bangladesh.