War on Taliban sparks refugee crisis
By Marie Colvin / London Times
Hundreds of thousands of once prosperous Pakistani villagers are stranded in freezing tented refugee camps after being compelled to leave home by their own forces in a ferocious battle against the Taliban along the Afghan border.
Yesterday 300,000 Pakistani men, women and children, many of them driven from farms in the Bajaur region, were sheltering in eight makeshift camps on the outskirts of their nearest city, Peshawar.
In one of the camps, Sheikh Yassin, home to 13,000 newly displaced Pakistanis, five children died of hypothermia on one night last week. They had been weakened by diarrhoea rife among children in the camp, which has no sanitation.
Aid officials had hoped to transfer some refugees to Jalozai, an area near Peshawar that was once an Afghan refugee camp, but on Friday they had to abandon their plans because of security concerns.
"The level of displacement is unprecedented in Pakistan," said Mohammed Adar, the beleaguered head of the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Peshawar.
more...
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=12628