Doha-based Pashtuns 'cut off' from displaced family members

PAK ARMY CAMPAIGN TRIGGERS HUMANITARIAN CRISIS

THOUSANDS of Pashtuns, who fled their villages and towns in the tribal area of Pakistan during the past few months to escape the army’s campaign, are being dearly missed by their family members here in Qatar.

These expatriates from the Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA), generally referred to as the tribal area between the 450km-long porous border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, are increasingly becoming worried, now that many have lost touch with their loved ones, thanks to a massive internal displacement.

“I’ve been trying to contact my family in the Kurram Agency for the past two weeks with no luck. Trying other relatives and townsmen is also going in vain,” said Mohamed Bangash, who has been in Qatar for the past 10 years.

“There is an incessant busy tone when calling a land line, while a recorded voice unpleasantly explains to me that the number I’ve dialled cannot be answered now, when I try a cell number,” he added.

Kurram Agency, along with Bajaur, Mohmand, Orakzai, Khyber, South Waziristan and North Waziristan Agency, constitute the FATA, where of late, the Pakistani government has launched air and land strikes to “root out violent extremists,” as well as stepped up incursions by the Nato forces operating in Afghanistan.

Islamabad has been intensifying its efforts, as Washington is said to have been increasingly becoming impatient with the results so far achieved by Pakistan, a frontline ally of the US in the global war on terrorism, according to critics.

“In the Kurram Agency, in particular, it’s the Shias and Sunnis killing each other, after a shooting spree at a Sunni mosque in November 2007. The whole event had an aura of how this type of situation was exploited in Iraq, so we have an idea what international agency patronises this to hide their failures,” member of the Pakistan’s National Assembly from the Kurram Agency, Munir Khan Orakzai told Gulf Times yesterday from Islamabad during a phone interview.

“They have been living side by side for hundreds of years,” Orakzai added.

“Now with the winter approaching, all the major roads have also been blocked, cutting off supplies to those left behind,” said A Ahmadzai, who hails from the North Waziristan Agency, where Nato forces launched early morning raids in an unprecedented attack last week.

“Some members of my family were able to flee the area two months ago and are safe now with relatives in the settled town of Kohat, but there’s still no news about the others,” Ahmadzai added.

The tribal belt, spread over 27,220sq km is a tangle of difficult mountains intersected by long narrow valleys, innumerable gorges and frequent beds interspersed with strips of cultivable land. There are rugged mountains with barren slopes as in Mohmand and Khyber agencies and rugged and complex hills and ridges as in South Waziristan. The mountain ranges are generally 1,500 to 3,500 metres high.

“With the main roads closed, locals have been forced to use the makeshift dirt roads to get daily supplies, including food,” said A Afridi, from Bajaur Agency.

“And this being Ramadan, life has become very difficult for people up there on the mountains – if they are still alive,” said Afridi who returned to Doha two months ago after spending half a year in his village.

“This has led to hundreds of thousands of people being internally displaced, causing a humanitarian crisis.”

MNA Munir Orakzai yesterday put the figure of displaced people at 300,000 from Bajaur and 50,000 from Kurram Agency. Pakistan is already home to approximately 3mn Afghan refugees, according to government estimates.

“The government needs to offer immediate assistance to these displaced families, children and women, and they should set up information cells at all its overseas embassies, where people can find out about the well-being of their family members,” Afridi suggested.

“As for my family, including two young sons, I relocated them to a city near Islamabad this year in an effort to find them better education and a safe living. After all these are the things that we all yearn for,” he added.