‘Refugees in our own land’

With 24 hours to evacuate, the people of the war-torn Swat valley employed whatever little means they could to flee.

‘People were desperate,’ narrates Ayesha, a staff nurse at Saidu Hospital, ‘and a good number left with only the clothes they wore.’

Ayesha and her family count themselves lucky to be able to afford a bus ticket, the rest, she claims, were left to trudge across the rugged terrain either on foot or on donkey carts.

‘We were treated like cattle, left to our own devices. The government ordered us to move out, ‘how’ and ‘where’ was not their concern,’ she states.

It is believed that the current military operation in Swat and its adjoining areas has displaced three million people from their homes. These people have been scattered all across Pakistan in camps with little or no help from the government.

‘We were lucky to have relatives in Karachi,’ says Zahira, who comes from Shamozai and has been to Karachi a number of times.

‘But this,’ she stresses, ‘was a journey like no other.’

Thirty hours is the maximum time needed to travel from Swat to Karachi, but the immense traffic (owing to the mass exodus from, and the influx of military contingents into, Swat) made this impossible.

‘We reached Karachi in five days,’ recalls Zahira. ‘The children were ill and fatigued due to the heat’.

According to most accounts, just reaching the Kohat Tunnel from Malakand via the Indus Highway took people more than nine hours. A journey which otherwise, according to Zahira, takes less than half that time. This delay led to the tunnel’s closure, which, according to them, ‘added to their troubles’.

Now, in addition to the quest for safety, the IDPs faced the humungous task of looking for a place to spend the night too.

‘We stayed at a small hotel, but were extremely stressed as we knew that the day ahead would throw new challenges at us,’ says Zahira. ‘If only the tunnel gates had been kept open a while longer, reaching our destinations would’ve been much easier,’ she adds.

As day dawned, people resumed their journey; some went to camps in Peshawar and Rawalpindi, while others with relatives in Karachi and Lahore, headed there.’The immense heat and shortage of food and water made the journey more tedious,’ says Zahira. According to most, the public was their only source of help.

‘As we sat in buses passers-by, who were moved by our plight, handed our thirsty children juice packs,’ says Ayesha, who was travelling with her in-laws.

‘My sister in-law Nadia, due to a medical condition, is in a semi-conscious state,’ she points to a young girl lying on the charpoy. ‘This journey worsened her condition.’

Nadia, who is 17, is entirely immobile. Ayesha says that since her husband is abroad and her father in-law is too old to carry her, the family was compelled to employ the help of various other people to move Nadia into the bus. ‘Never in our life could we imagine a na-mehram touching our women, but now this military operation has left us nowhere.’

As displaced persons reached Karachi, some may have expected to find much-needed respite. But the extreme ‘Taliban-phobia’ that they encountered here left them further alienated.

‘I have never felt this helpless in my life,’ says Khan (real name withheld on request), who holds a masters degree in Political Science and was running a girls school in Swat.

‘This is the last five hundred rupees I have,’ he says as he holds up the commissary note.

Khan has been looking for a job and is willing to take up any menial chore to support his wife and four children, yet he is unable to find one.

‘Everywhere I go, people treat me like a terrorist,’ he says. ‘Employers who at first seem interested in my credentials and qualifications back off as soon as they hear the words ‘from Swat’.’

Referring to young men being shot at by the army for violating the curfew and being tortured by the Taliban for failing to follow their version of Islam, Khan says: ‘We have suffered both at the hands of the Taliban and the army. We were the ones who were forced to leave our homes; being a refugee in our own land seems strange, but when we look at ourselves, this is what we’ve become.’

Khan isn’t the only one who believes this. Feelings of isolation abound most IDPs in Karachi.

‘We feel estranged here,’ says Ayesha.

‘The Pathans have contributed greatly to the development of Pakistan. We have given our lives for our homeland, yet today when the Pathans need support and help, their Pakistani brethren deem them terrorists.’