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The long road home for Pakistan’s IDPs

More than 4.3 million people have been displaced from Pakistan’s tribal areas over the last few years.

Those arriving at the voluntary repatriation camp are patted down by army soldiers who control of the camp. The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has made threats to those who want to return to their areas, saying they will be targeted for colluding with the Pakistani state.
By Asad Hashim
Published On 21 Mar 2015

Tank, Pakistan – Ten-year-old Fatima is one of the few people smiling at the Kaur Fort IDP repatriation camp, about 20km west of the frontier town of Tank, one of the entrances to Pakistan’s tribal belt.

She’s one of about 21,000 people returning home to the South Waziristan tribal area, the birthplace of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), after having fled the conflict there six years ago.

In all, almost half a million people were forced to flee South Waziristan in 2009, when the Pakistani military began an operation to clear the area of the TTP, an umbrella organisation of armed religious groups then led by its founder, Baitullah Mehsud.

The operation was one of the first against armed anti-state fighters in the tribal belt, and marked the beginning of operations across the seven tribal agencies of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) that continues to this day.

More than 4.3 million people have been displaced from Pakistan’s tribal areas over the last few years, with some operations seeing the mass clearance of the entire civilian population from districts.

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Of those, about 2.2 million people remain displaced, and about 422,000 are from South Waziristan.

Now, those people are returning home in an effort spearheaded by the Federal Disaster Management Authority, and assisted by the Pakistani military.

The National Identity Card is a key document for all Pakistani citizens, and particularly for internally displaced people (IDPs).
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After being issued tokens to enter the camp, a long wait lies ahead for those seeking to return home. Most appear pensive and spoke of their concern regarding the state of the home they would be returning to.
The Pakistani military runs a biometric verification service, linked with the national identity card database, to keep track of residents of Pakistan’s militancy-plagued tribal areas.
IDPs are also given a free medical check-up and basic medication if they need it. “Usually we see chest infections, coughs, colds and stomach issues here,” says Wali-ur-Rehman, local health official in South Waziristan.
In accordance with strictly conservative tribal traditions, women and children are allowed to remain within enclosures while the males of the family make their way through a process of registration, verification and disbursals at the camp.
“The situation was dangerous, which is why we left [in 2009],” says Abdur Rehman, 34, who came to the camp from the city of Karachi, more than 850km away. “There was bombardment by jets and gunship helicopters. It took about 12 or 13 hours to walk [to safety] with my whole family.”
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“We hope that we will see peace in all of South Waziristan,” says Rokh Badhsah, 34, a resident of Chagmalai in South Waziristan. “The same kind of peace we saw in the late 1990s, such that people are a bit more free, and not as tense all the time.”
Those voluntarily repatriating through the government’s camp are being given clothes, basic food rations, hygiene kits, and other items that they will need to survive when returning to homes that, in many cases, may have been completely destroyed.
The process at the camp is slow, and queues quickly begin to stretch out onto the neatly maintained gravel pathways.
Seven hours after they first entered the camp, the first batch of returnees is finally ready to set off for their villages in the Sarwakai sub-district of South Waziristan.
The army is providing security to all IDP convoys, with heavily armed soldiers escorting each family back to their homes. The TTP, which is still active in some parts of South Waziristan, has threatened returning IDPs with death for associating with the army.
Ausat-ud-din, 75, is ready to head home to his village of Splatoi, in the Sarwakai sub-district.