Events in Pakistan’s Swat Valley continue to produce dire humanitarian results…
“As the Pakistani military’s offensive against the Swat Valley continues, around 1.45 million are reported to have successfully fled. For several families today attempting to leave their homes, that trek ended in disaster as the Pakistani military attacked and killed several of them, and wounded an unknown number of others. Women and children were among the slain.
Witnesses who managed to escape the attack and reach a town in Upper Dir say the party of civilian families were crossing a mountain path after leaving their homes in the town of Matta, when they were attacked by the military’s helicopter gunships. Matta was the latest Swati town to be targeted in the ongoing offensive.”
Since the offensive in the Swat Valley began on the 5th of this month, some 1.45 million people have been displaced. Put into perspective, since the invasion of Iraq over 4 million Iraqis have been displaced, both internally and as refugees in neighbouring countries. So, in fifteen days, the number of Pakistanis that have been displaced is equal to one fourth of those Iraqis displaced in six years.
