EXODUS In Pakistan is beyond biblical 85,000 people a day

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/in-pakistan-an-exodus-that-is-beyond-biblical-1693513.html

The language was already biblical; now the scale of what is happening matches it. The exodus of people forced from their homes in Pakistan's Swat Valley and elsewhere in the country's north-west may be as high as 2.4 million, aid officials say. Around the world, only a handful of war-spoiled countries – Sudan, Iraq, Colombia – have larger numbers of internal refugees. The speed of the displacement at its height – up to 85,000 people a day – was matched only during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. This is now one of the biggest sudden refugee crises the world has ever seen.

Until now, the worst of the problem has been kept largely out of sight. Of the total displaced by the military's operations against the Taliban – the army yesterday claimed a crucial breakthrough, taking control of the Swat Valley's main town, Mingora – just 200,000 people have been forced to live in the makeshift tent camps dotted around the southern fringe of the conflict zone. The vast majority were taken in by relatives, extended family members and local people wanting to help.

But this grassroots sense of charity is slowly starting to show real strain. In a week when the relentless danger of the militants was underlined by a massive car bomb in the city of Lahore that killed at least 30 people and injured hundreds more, aid groups have warned that the communities taking people in – already some of the planet's poorest people – could themselves be displaced as they desperately sell their few assets to help the homeless.

In these "homestay" situations, some that exist purely because of tribal links between the displaced and those opening their doors, anywhere from 10 to 15 people are crowded into one room. A single latrine is shared by, on average, 35 people. Aid groups have called for a large and immediate injection of funds to help these host families who have stood forward to help those with nothing.
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Wheres the News Coverage?
this is as many people who live in Ohio
can you imagine all of the people in Ohio moving away

(T)he Pakistani military seems able to monitor Taliban leaders, including Mr. Fazlullah, but remains unable or unwilling to kill or capture them.

While the Taliban leaders remain at large, the millions of Pakistanis who have fled Swat and other conflict areas are reluctant to return to their homes. In a text message to journalists on Monday night, a group of liberal activists from Swat said they would not believe that the military was serious about its campaign unless Mr. Fazlullah and his five deputies were killed.

The Swat campaign, which began May 8, is seen as a test of Pakistan’s resolve to tackle its spreading insurgency, which came as close as 60 miles from its capital, Islamabad, this year. Two earlier offensives failed, criticized as half-hearted efforts that inflicted too many civilian casualties.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/02/world/asia/02pstan.html?hpw

This is a choice of heartburn now or heartburn later. God help them if they don't have the guts to get bloody.

G-D help them if they do.

Me, being a simple woman of my people, I favor hitting the Taliban with everything including gardening tools, rather than watch the women of Pakistan die like the women of Afghanistan.

Men were put on this earth to help women and children. If they fail in this mission, I want them off the earth. Preventing a woman from going to school or seeing a doctor or practicing her profession or leaving her house is FAILING in the mission. They can bring me the dicks.

If Pakistan has launched a serious offensive against the Taliban, I don't see anything possible but killing everyone in sight.

Not something you'd want the kids to see, anyway.

thats where this is going
like the Sudan

very ugly
they will fail

Sadly, another one of those countries where Washington spent 20 years helping Islamists kill commies (and train the Taleban) rather than the other way around.

I wonder if under different circumstances would that happen here?