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Aid workers worried about SWA civilians

* Trapped civilians can’t afford exorbitant rates charged by transporters to escape war zone

ISLAMABAD: Rising numbers of civilians are pouring out of South Waziristan to flee battles between security forces and the Taliban 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, 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. The military said only one to two percent of the population remained in the conflict zone. “These are people who have stayed back to take care of their properties,” Ahmad said.

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.

“The people who are left behind are often the poorest of the poor,” he said.

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. afp

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