Pakistani Exodus Wreaks New Hardships

May 10, 2009, TAKHT BHAI, Pakistan — -- As many as 150,000 Pakistanis fled their homes in the Swat Valley today, taking advantage of a lull in the fighting to leave in any way they could -- walking over the mountains, hanging off the sides of local jingle trucks, sitting on top of buses.

The exodus added to the hundreds of thousands of people who have escaped three districts north of the capital in the last week and a half, but these were the first people who managed to leave after the fighting began in Swat earlier this week.

"The Taliban had captured the town ... The fighting was intense so we left everything and got ourselves out," said Muhammad Amin as he arrived from his home in Mingora, Swat's main city, in Takht Bhai. "There is no water, no gas, there is nothing -- no power, no vegetables, no milk, and people are hungry."

Not everyone has managed to leave Mingora, residents say, but anyone who could got out today. The Pakistani army is reinforcing the 15,000 soldiers currently battling in Swat, and hints that now that most of the population has left, it can step up its campaign, especially in the populated areas.

"We want to separate the population from the militants," said Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, the military's chief spokesman. "The more the civilians leave, it will be better for the military."

That is because previous operations in Swat have caused civilian casualties, and residents fleeing Swat insist the military has targeted them as much as the militants.

Eight-year-old Shaista knows far too well the danger of trying to leave the war zone as the military fights. She arrived in the Mardan District Headquarters Hospital late last week. She and her family had been walking from their home in Mingora. Her mother and two of her sisters didn't make it. An errant army bomb killed all of them, her uncle said.

"We were leaving with other people, and a lot of people died," Shaista said.

Her uncle hadn't worked up the courage to tell her that her father had died as well.

As bad as the situation is for Swat residents living in and around Mingora, those living north of the city are faring much worse.