War on Taliban sparks refugee crisis in Pakistan

[babylonsister]

War on Taliban sparks refugee crisis

By Marie Colvin / London Times


Hundreds of thousands of once prosperous Pakistani villagers are stranded in freezing tented refugee camps after being compelled to leave home by their own forces in a ferocious battle against the Taliban along the Afghan border.

Yesterday 300,000 Pakistani men, women and children, many of them driven from farms in the Bajaur region, were sheltering in eight makeshift camps on the outskirts of their nearest city, Peshawar.

In one of the camps, Sheikh Yassin, home to 13,000 newly displaced Pakistanis, five children died of hypothermia on one night last week. They had been weakened by diarrhoea rife among children in the camp, which has no sanitation.

Aid officials had hoped to transfer some refugees to Jalozai, an area near Peshawar that was once an Afghan refugee camp, but on Friday they had to abandon their plans because of security concerns.

"The level of displacement is unprecedented in Pakistan," said Mohammed Adar, the beleaguered head of the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Peshawar.

more...

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=12628

[Winnipegosis]

1. This will probably continue for a long time.

Pakistan has no faith that America et.al., will be in it for the long haul in Afghanistan so it most keep up appearances with al-Qaeda as a form of insurance for the future.

[ConsAreLiars]

2. One more generation being taught by the unjust wars waged by the US

that the US is truly evil incarnate, creating mass deaths, maimed children, starvation, refugees, and widespread suffering in every part of the world it touches. That view is a bit oversimplified, since the corporate owners and operators of the US state machinery are doing the same to the people of the US as well. Once we realize that the tribal people of Pakistan and Afghanistan are our brothers and sisters, and those who murder them are our enemies no less than theirs, well, maybe we will wake up enough to change our own lives as well as theirs.