Andrew Buncombe and Omar Waraich report from Swabi
AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Families flee from an army offensive against Taliban militants in the Shamuzai area of Pakistan’s Swat Valley yesterday. More than half a million refugees have been registered
enlargeThe old woman fell to her knees in the dust, her arms covering her head to show how she had tried to hide as the shells fell around them. “There was so much noise and chaos,” said the woman, Shirina, who said she was 80. “We walked over the hills on foot. Then we hired a car.” Asked if the bombardment had caused any casualties, she and her family responded as one: “The world was killed. Lots of people were killed. Too many.”
Two days earlier, the family from Pakistan’s Buner district had arrived in this makeshift refugee camp after fleeing the military’s increasingly forceful battle with Taliban militants. There are hundreds of thousands like them, driven from the war zone, and they tell similar tales of fear, anguish and loss. They talk too, of an unknown number of civilians being killed in what is in effect a hidden war.
Yesterday, as the military said it had stepped up its operation in the Swat valley, which neighbours Buner, Human Rights Watch led a growing chorus of voices expressing concern about the potential civilian cost of the military operation.
Tags: refugees, Pakistan, Human Rights Watch, Swat valley, Pakistan army offensive
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