Pakistan's Forgotten Casualties of War
Thousands of civilians flee fighting between the military and the Taliban
-- Omar Waraich in Chingalai, Buner
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A Pakistani policeman searches the belongings of displaced people from the Buner district at a make shift camp in Mardan. Hundreds of thousands of panicked civilians are fleeing Pakistan's Swat district as clashes with Taliban fighters heighten fears that a peace deal is about to collapse.
(AFP/Hasham Ahmed)
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Shafiq Ullah vividly recalls the night he fled his home. "The helicopters came close over us, growing louder," the silver-bearded farmer says, in quick, panicked breaths.
"I could see the bombs firing from cannons come down on the nearby houses. I saw one house destroyed completely. We waited at first, but then decided to leave. It was dangerous, but we had no choice. I was too afraid to stay there."
Clasping the hands of his children, Mr Ullah walked for two hours from his home in Ambela - the scene of some of the fiercest fighting between Pakistani forces and Taliban fighters - to the relative safety of a mosque in Goga village.
Along the way, they encountered scenes that still haunt him. "It was awful. I saw pregnant women losing their babies, at least three of them. There were also ordinary people's dead bodies lying on the road, and dogs eating their flesh."
Mr Ullah is not alone. With the Pakistani military locked in a crucial battle against hundreds of Taliban fighters, tens of thousands of civilians are estimated to have fled the fighting.
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