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.
Gunmen have attacked police facilities in the eastern city of Lahore, Pakistan Thursday 15 October. Several people are reported dead but the exact number is unknown, and there are unconfirmed reports by local television of hostages held inside the Federal Investigation Agency building. Gunmen are also said to have attacked another nearby police training site.
Eight people including the driver also died Thursday morning when a man rammed a car into a police station in Kohat district, Northwest Frontier Province, south of Peshawar. BBC, CNN
An unmanned US drone in the border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan dropped two missiles on the house of a relative of Pakistan Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud 5 August, killing several people, including the Taliban chief’s second wife. Unconfirmed reports from Pakistan say that an unidentified person killed may have been Mehsud himself.
Mehsud is widely suspected of being behind the assassination of former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who was shot and killed at a political rally in December 2007.
Pakistani armed forces have been gearing up for battle with Baitullah Mehsud’s insurgent forces in South Waziristan in the Federally Adminsitered Tribal Areas (FATA), after having cleared neighbouring Swat and Duner districts, in the Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP), of Mehsud’s forces. BBC, CNN
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Several international aid agencies working with internally displaced people (IDPs) in northwest Pakistan have called for a more rapid deployment of funds in order to help the estimated 2.4 million (IDPs) who fled fighting in the Swat valley in May 2009, even as more arrive daily from the conflict areas. Most of the IDPs have found shelter not in camps but with friends and family. This hospitality is now being sorely tested as more and more families are arriving at camps, says the UNHCR (UN High Commissioner for Refugees).
Updated 10:15 Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Two UN employees were killed Tuesday night 9 June in a bomb blast that killed 16 and demolished the five-star Hotel Pearl Continental in Peshawar, capital of Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP) in Pakistan. One, a UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) employee from Serbia, was on mission in Peshawar. Aleksandar Vorkapic, an information technology specialist in the UNHCR office in Belgrade was on his first emergency mission for the organization, the UNHCR office in Geneva announced Wednesday morning. He leaves a wife and three children.
The other death, a woman who is a Philippines citizen, was working for the World Food Programme, a spokesperson at the UNHCR office in Peshawar has told GenevaLunch. Several other UNHCR employees who were staying at the Pearl Continental Hotel have been evacuated to Islamabad, the spokesperson says. The Geneva office of UNHCR cites news reports as saying a Unicef staff person has died.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) visited Mingora in Pakistan’s Swat valley again today 3 June to evaluate the needs of the civilian population remaining in the area.
Simon Schorno, an ICRC delegate now at its Geneva headquarters, who recently returned from the area told GenevaLunch that ICRC is seeking agreement from the parties to the conflict to set up a a sub-delegation in Mingora, scene of much fighting in the last two weeks. It hopes to reach agreement shortly.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Antonio Guterres 11 May announced that his organization is chartering a Boeing 747 to transport emergency items to Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province, at a cost of $584,000. Much more will be needed, he noted in an appeal to the international community for financial assistance and solidarity to help hundreds of thousands of Pakistani civilians displaced by recent heavy fighting in the region.
Fifty-five Taliban rebels are said to have been killed Saturday when Pakistan’s military took the offensive against the militants in the Swat region of the North West Frontier Province. The government sent helicopter gunships and airplanes against stiff resistance. Hundreds of thousands of civilians are still trapped in the area and unable to leave, according to the government. Reuters
