Red Cross Warns of Crisis in Pakistan
By Alan Cowell, The New York Times, May 7, 2009
<< An internally displaced family on a truck in Malakand, near the Swat valley region of Pakistan, on Thursday. Reuters
PARIS — With their possessions piled on pickup trucks or escaping on foot, thousands of people were reported to be fleeing the conflict in Pakistan’s Swat Valley on Thursday as the International Committee of the Red Cross said that up to half a million people may have been uprooted by the fighting.
The international body, based in Geneva, also said the conflict between government forces and Taliban militants had severed its access to places where civilians most needed help and that a humanitarian crisis was worsening.
The Red Cross warning coincided with news reports from the region on Thursday saying the government had intensified strikes with helicopter gunships and warplanes. The reports could not be verified in part because reporters are barred from the area. The authorities said Wednesday that at least 35 militants had been killed.
Under pressure from the United States, Pakistan has said its forces are trying to turn back an encroachment by Taliban militants that has brought the insurgents to within 60 miles of the capital, Islamabad. The fighting was focused on the areas of Dir, Buner and Swat, where a cease-fire between government forces and militants has apparently collapsed.
The government’s reports of action against the Taliban coincided with a visit to Washington by Pakistan’s president, Asif Ali Zardari, who met Wednesday with President Obama.
Reuters reported that thousands of people took advantage of a break in a curfew on Thursday to escape as government aircraft strafed Taliban positions. Last February the authorities struck a contentious truce with the Taliban, effectively handing the militants control of the region.
News reports on Thursday said casualties included the son of a radical cleric, Maulana Sufi Muhammad, who helped broker the truce. A spokesman for the cleric was quoted in news reports as saying his son died when artillery shells hit his house in Dir district, adjoining Swat.
Reuters quoted Swat’s administrator, Khushal Khan, as saying the authorities were helping people to flee after a curfew was eased. He also said convoys of troops were moving into the region. The Associated Press reported on Thursday that Taliban militants had thrown up roadblocks to prevent residents from fleeing the Swat Valley, whose main settlement, Mingora, is under Taliban control.
<< Children lined up to get hot tea at a refugee camp in Mardan, Pakistan, on Thursday. Greg Baker/Associated Press
In a statement on Thursday, the Red Cross said that, “although figures remain unverifiable at this stage, reports indicated that up to 500,000 Pakistanis have been recently displaced by conflict in Dir, Buner and Swat.”
The statement said a humanitarian crisis “is intensifying.”
Benno Kocher, a Red Cross official in Peshawar, was quoted as saying: “We can no longer reach the areas most affected by the fighting on account of the volatile situation.”
The statement said the Red Cross and the Pakistan Red Crescent anticipated that 120,000 people from the conflict zone would need food and other relief supplies while 30,000 would require basic health care.
It urged combatants to minimize civilian casualties and to permit access by humanitarian organizations.
Pascal Cuttat, the head of the Red Cross delegation in Islamabad, was quoted in the statement as saying: “Civilians displaced by the fighting have a right to receive assistance to cover their basic needs, such as food, water, shelter and medical care. Humanitarian organizations like the I.C.R.C. must be given safe and unimpeded access to the affected population.”
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