THE UN refugee agency reported on Friday that Islamabad’s US-backed offensive against Islamist militants in north-western Pakistan has now displaced over 1.4 million people – and numbers are “going up by the hour.”
As government forces prepared for street-by-street battles with guerillas entrenched in Mingora, the largest town in the Swat Valley, UN High Commissioner for Refugees spokesman William Spindler reported that over 900,000 new internal refugees have been registered since May 2.
This is in addition to the 550,000 who have already been forced from their homes since last August.
Mr Spindler emphasised that “these are the minimum figures.”
He told a press conference in Geneva that “the numbers are going up by the hour” as more people take advantage of Islamabad’s decision on Friday to lift a curfew in Swat, where 15,000 soldiers face around 5,000 guerillas.
Meanwhile, Islamist fighters in the Waziristan region on the Afghan border warned that war loomed in their area, demanding an immediate end to attacks by pilotless US drone aircraft, the release of militant prisoners and the withdrawal of government troops.
A militant umbrella group said in a statement: “The army and the government is given 10 days to consider and implement these demands, after which they will be responsible for all consequences.
“War clouds loom over North and South Waziristan,” it concluded.
Washington is currently training a Pakistani paramilitary force deployed across the Afghan frontier region and a senior US military official has divulged that the Pentagon is considering plans to accelerate and expand the training of the Frontier Corps.
US and Pakistani officials are discussing a programme that would increase the number of US special operations trainers in the country, said the senior official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because no decisions have yet been made.
Tags: refugees, US drone attacks, Waziristan, Swat valley, Islamist militants, UN High Commissioner for Refugees
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