Civilians caught in the crossfire in Pakistan
Posted: Friday, May 08, 2009 5:37 PM
Filed Under:
Islamabad, Pakistan
By NBC News’ Mushtaq Yusufzai
MARDAN, Pakistan – Shaista, a terrified 11-year-old girl from the Swat Valley, was lying in a hospital bed in Mardan’s ill-equipped health center on Friday.
She suffered severe injuries to her legs when an artillery shell, reportedly fired by Pakistani troops, hit her family’s small house Thursday night in Mingora.
The traumatized Shaista said the mortar shell struck a room where she was sleeping. Her voice choking, Shaista said her mother, two sisters and brother were killed in the incident – and then she became lost in deep despair.
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| Mushtaq Yusufzai / NBC |
| Shaista, 11, in her hospital bed in Marden. |
A doctor treating the girl said she seems to lose her memory when speaking and starts to suddenly cry – apparently because of deep shock she suffered.
Children have proved to be some of the hardest-hit victims among the estimated 1 million people displaced by the ongoing fighting between Pakistan’s armed forces and Taliban militants in the northern districts of Buner and Swat.
Shaista said her father was worried about her family’s safety after the Pakistani military launched its operation against the Taliban in Swat and went to locate a house in a safer area for them to go to.
"He went to Dargai town on Thursday and said he would shift us to a safer place on Friday," she said, but the move didn’t happen soon enough. She said her neighbors recovered the bodies of her mother, sisters and brother from the rubble of the building and then took her to the hospital in the morning.
Ahmad Yar, a villager from Daggar who was taking care of his critically injured mother in the same ward of the hospital, said he had decided to take Shaista to his home once she is discharged. He said the neighbors who had taken her to the hospital left so that they could move their own families to a safer place.
‘We don’t know what our crime is’
In the same hospital, more than a dozen people had been admitted from Buner district with multiple injuries they received when they came under heavy artillery shelling by the security forces.
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| Mushtaq Yusufzai / NBC News |
| Pakhtun Qamar, 12, was injured by an artillery shell in the Swat Valley. Doctors in the Marden hospital operated on his legs and had to amputate several of his fingers. |
"We don’t know what our crime is that our own armed forces are targeting us. On one hand the government is asking us to vacate our houses and on the other they imposed curfew and blocked all roads in Buner," complained Sher Badshah, who came from the village of Suwarai. He said thousands of people are still trapped in Buner who cannot come out due to a government imposed curfew and the blockade of roads.
Badshah complained that he was taking his family to the apparent safety of Mardan when an artillery shell hit one of the trucks, killing five members of his family and injuring three others, including his aged father.
"Now tell me what crime this aged person had committed," his angry son asked.
He alleged that instead of eliminating Taliban militants, the troops have been targeting innocent people who wanted to flee for safer places.
He claimed several people who were moving to safer places via the mountains had been killed by indiscriminate military artillery shelling and their bodies were still lying there.
‘I don’t know what kind of people these Taliban are’
Shams-ul-Qamar’s story was no less tragic. He said he lost his eldest son in the cross-fire between Taliban and security forces.
"Qamar had just passed his matriculation examination and was looking forward to getting admission to college," he said.
But his family’s tragedy started months ago – when Pakistani troops set up a security post close to his house.
"Being a Pakhtuns, it’s our tradition to serve guests with whatever is available at home," Qamar said, referring to the tribal group in Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province. "We were poor people but tried to serve the guest soldiers sometime with milk, tea and drinking water."
However, when the troops vacated their roadside post under a peace deal that was struck between the government and the Taliban last February, militants decided to settle their score with Qamar and his family.
"They entered our home and opened fire, killing my sister Zar Bibi, my niece Farzana, my 50-year-old sister-in-law Zareena, and kidnapping my nephew on charges of taking sides and helping the Pakistan Army troops. The Taliban also took [my nephew’s] 88 model Toyota car. They later released him when he paid 100,000 rupees to the Taliban," the terrified Qamar told me and then broke into tears.
He said the government has done nothing for him since he lost four of his family members for supporting their troops.
"I don’t know what kind of people these Taliban are – Pakhtuns never target women and children," he said.
