Aid workers worry over Pak war zone

FE Team | Published: November 04, 2009 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

ISLAMABAD, Nov 3 (AFP): Rising numbers of civilians are pouring out of Pakistan's war zone to flee battles between soldiers and Taliban militants but the fate of those left behind is uncertain, humanitarian workers say.
"How much civilians are affected, we don't know, and for that we need access," said Billi Bierling, spokeswoman for the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Pakistan.
Up to 250,000 people have fled the military's major offensive, now into a third week in South Waziristan on the Afghan border, said Lieutenant General Nadeem Ahmad, chief of the state-run agency handling the displaced.
But no one knows the exact number of displaced people or those left in the conflict zone because foreign aid workers have not been able to enter the areas, the humanitarian workers say.
"We... know that there are still civilians trapped in the areas where fighting's taking place," said Sebastien Brack, spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Pakistan.
Normally about 300,000 people live in the part of South Waziristan which the military is seeking to clear of "terrorists".
The district is part of a lawless tribal belt where US officials say Al-Qaeda and their allies are plotting attacks on the West.
The military said that only one to two percent of the population remained in the conflict zone.
But the ICRC warned that the numbers were likely higher because others could not afford the "extortionate" rates charged by people offering transport for those fleeing.
Like aid workers, reporters usually have no access to the conflict area, where communication lines are down.
A correspondent briefly invited by the military into areas of South Waziristan under its control on Sunday saw no civilians.
Brack said the ICRC had tried unsuccessfully to gain access to South Waziristan to assist victims of fighting and to visit detainees, in accordance with its mandate.