People of Waziristan leave home again © 2009 Tariq Saeed/IRIN

Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Thousands of people displaced by the two-week old conflict in South Waziristan, in Pakistan’s northwest, are arriving in the Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP) districts of Tank and Dera Ismail Khan, sometimes fleeing the fighting by difficult, dangerous and expensive routes.

Their escape from the middle of a war zone, access to and from which is tightly controlled by the Pakistan military, is recounted in an article by Irin News. A local newpaper, Dawn, reports 20 October on a family, 12 of whose members were killed by a bomb while fleeing.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees says about 125,000 people have fled since hostilities began, joining the 81,000 who had already left since August. Most find accommodation with friends and family, following Pashtun tribal customs of hospitality. The UN children’s agency, Unicef, says most of the displaced are women and children.

The Pakistani government says it has registered an estimated 25,000 families, and has distributed cash cards loaded with Rs5,000 (about CHF60) each to family heads, an idea that worked well for the IDPs of Swat and Buner earlier this year.The cards are loaded with Rs5,000 per month for a maximum of 6 months. They are handed out after registration and on the basis of a national ID card. But in the current displacement, fewer than 6,300 families have received the cards, mostly because they never had a government ID card or were forced to flee without them. As a result, ration cards and relief goods cannot be immediately claimed, reports the International News.

Unicef has just finished, through its local partners, vaccinating 180,000 children from IDP families and their hosts in NWFP against measles, many of them for the first time, and has upgraded water supply systems and installed hand pumps.

For security reasons, no international aid agency and no foreign correspondents of international news agencies are permitted access to the NWFP districts which have received the displaced people. The international aid agencies are extremely circumspect in their declarations, because the security situation is very difficult. Other than government agencies, not even the local partners of the aid agencies may be named.

The Pakistani military launched a long-announced campaign against the Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), militants in the area which borders Afghanistan, 16 October, less than two weeks ago. The military says operations will be completed in two months, although some analysts dispute the military’s claim to be able to subdue the region in that time, especially with the onset of winter. After that, reconstruction can begin. Only then can the people go home.

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