The Pakistan military offensive against pro-Taliban militia in the country’s North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) has produced a massive humanitarian crisis. More than one-and-a-half million people have fled their homes during the past month—the largest number of people to have been displaced by violence since the Rwandan genocide of 1994, reports the United Nations High Commission for Refugees.
The fighting and resulting exodus of Pashtuns from the NWFP is also exacerbating national-ethnic tensions in Pakistan, a country founded on communalism and beset by ethnic and religious-communal cleavages.
On Friday, the United Nations’ refugee agency (the UNHCR) issued an urgent appeal for $450 million, saying it had only raised $86 million of the $543 million it calculates it will need to finance UN-led efforts to support the refugees until the end of 2009.
“The scale of this displacement is extraordinary in terms of size and speed and has caused incredible suffering,” said the UN’s humanitarian coordinator in Pakistan, Martin Mogwanja.
UN officials have repeatedly expressed concern that if the humanitarian crisis is not quickly addressed, the military offensive Islamabad has launched, under heavy pressure from Washington in the name of enforcing the writ of the Pakistani state over all its territory, could in fact greatly intensify opposition to the Pakistani government.
Tags: displaced people, military offensive, North West Frontier Province, Pakistan, pro-Taliban militia, UNHCR's appeal
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