...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous...
airport that apparently proved the fulcrum and prompted the state to send military forces into North
Wazoo. Was the fallout on civilians fully thought through? Operation Zarb-e-Azb has been under way for just a few days and already the director of the Fata Disaster Management Authority says that some 92,000 people have fled the region since the military started launching air strikes, mostly going to the adjoining Bannu district in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central...
. On Wednesday, in the wake of authorities easing the curfew in some parts of the region to let civilians leave — taken by some as an indication that the campaign is likely widen into a ground operation soon — an exodus of around 30,000 has occurred. More continue to pour out, carrying with them whatever they can. Apart from fleeing to the provinces, thousands of people have also gone across the border into Afghanistan's Khost province
... across the border from Miranshah, within commuting distance of Haqqani hangouts such as Datta Khel and probably within sight of Mordor. Khost is populated by six different tribes of Pashtuns, the largest probably being the Khostwal, from which it takes its name...
where, according to Afghan authorities, they lack basic facilities including food.
Some camps for these internally displaced people have been set up and reportedly registration points are also in evidence to deal with the influx of people. However,
there is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened...
the camps remain largely empty; it seems that many families prefer to make their own arrangements. This, unfortunately, is understandable to an extent since the plight of the tens of thousands of people similarly displaced during earlier military operations and who ended up in camps is fresh in the region's memory, even if it has been forgotten by the country on the lam. Overcrowded and underequipped, living conditions at these camps were far from satisfactory and led to the deaths of many. It took the state several years to sort out the problem of those displaced in earlier rounds; this time, the problem is likely to be far worse since the operation appears to be taking on bigger and more sustained dimensions.
In this regard, it is outrageous that the Sindh and Balochistan
...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it...
governments have sent out signals that they will not allow internally displaced persons to seek refuge here. Certainly, there are valid concerns: violence-hit Balochistan worries about gunnies slipping through amidst the flood of refugees, while Sindh is concerned about the further spread of polio
...Poliomyelitis is a disease caused by infection with the poliovirus. Between 1840 and the 1950s, polio was a worldwide epidemic. Since the development of polio vaccines the disease has been largely wiped out in the civilized world. However, since the vaccine is known to make Moslem pee-pees shrink and renders females sterile, bookish, and unsubmissive it is not widely used by the turban and automatic weapons set...
— figures given a couple of days ago put the number of unvaccinated children poised to flee North Waziristan at about 300,000. But both matters can be resolved through an efficient registration and checkpoint system. It behoves the country and its provinces to square up for the challenge. Making citizens feel unwelcome is only going to exacerbate the alienation from the mainstream that many in the tribal areas already suffer.