Forty years old Ajmer Khan of Qambarkhel tribe in Bara received the shock of his life when he lost his wife while hurriedly fleeing his house in Mashomano Adeera amid artillery shelling and aerial bombing by military planes which also damaged part of his mud house.

“I lost my wife, my house and I am without any source of earning after reaching Jalozai camp in great distress,” Ajmer Khan who was a daily wager narrated his ordeal to this scribe with tears rolling down his eyes and grey beard.

He has four daughters and a son to look after and said that artillery shelling left him with no other option but to leave his partially damaged house empty-handed and reach Jalozai camp while walking on foot for several hours before he was provided free transport by the Fata Disaster Management Authority at one of its enlistment points near Peshawar.

Shahmat Khan Kamarkhel, 35, a resident of Takhtaki area in Tirah valley, had to walk on foot for almost eight hours along with his wife and two children to first cross over to Nangrahar province of Afghanistan and then reach Jamrud via Torkham border after spending a night at a sarai (inn) in Landi Kotal. He said all routes leading to Bara and Orakzai Agency were either closed or occupied by militants and thus they had to cross over to Afghanistan in order to reach Torkham border to save their lives.

“We left behind all our belongings and are now without shelter and food at the Jalozai camp, sharing a tent with some relatives,” he said, adding that he himself sleep in the nearby mosque as the worn out tents were mostly occupied by women and children to protect them from cold.

Artillery shelling and aerial bombing are the biggest concerns of most of the recently dislocated families from Tirah and different parts of Bara who were asked by the security forces to vacate their houses before the start of Khyber One military operation. None of them however were willing to talk about the excesses of militant groups operating in their areas.

“We have left behind all our belongings and are now without shelter and food at the Jalozai camp. I sleep in the nearby mosque as the worn out tents are mostly allotted to women and children to protect them from cold,” says Shahmat Khan, a resident of Takhtaki area of Tirah valley

Raziq, 21, was snubbed by his uncle Mir Said when the young nephew tried to explain how most of the fleeing families were held hostage at gunpoint by militants in Dars Jumaat area of Akkakhel to use them as human shield against aerial strikes and shelling.

Azad Khan Akkakhel of Mastak area in Tirah also conceded that their houses were bombed because of presence of Tanzeem (a reference to Mangal Bagh-led Lashkar-i-Islam) activists in their area, but quickly mended his words and insisted that the launch of Khyber One was uncalled for as they lived in peace under the ‘Tanzeem’.

A farmer by profession, sixty years old Azad Khan said that a portion of his house was damaged in air strikes and his livestock except one cow, which he was able to drag along, also perished in the bombing, causing him huge financial loss. He used to cultivate poppy on his fields and said that he was never stopped by the ‘Tanzeem’ as he would contribute monetary donations to them.

Azad Khan along with his family of 16 was provided shelter in Phase-2 of Jalozai camp by a member of the camp shura. He was now busy building a mud kitchen for his family. He said that some 2,000 of Mastak, Tora Vella, Bhango Darra, Essara, Serhai and Ghalanai families were forced to leave their houses without any prior warning by the security forces before the start of operation.

No one else dared to speak against banned militant groups. Most of the internally displaced persons interviewed at Jalozai and Peshtakhara enlistment point at Ring Road in Peshawar instead accused the security forces and government agencies of dislocating innocent people by force and then not providing them any relief.

Shameer Khan Akkakhel told Dawn that he paid Rs7,500 to a truck driver to transport his family and household items out of Bara and another Rs9,000 to a tractor trolley to take him to Jalozai camp. “Except for few packets of biscuits and some bottled water for our family of 25 persons at Peshtakhara nothing else was provided to us by any government agency,” he said.

Provincial Disaster Management Authority chief coordinator at Jalozai camp Wasim Khattak told Dawn that of the total 63,000 families dislocated from Tirah and different parts of Bara due to the ongoing military operation, only 2,150 families have opted to live in the camp which was already housing 5,000 families from Bara since 2009. He said that most of the newly arrived families were already registered with them and only a limited number was unregistered.

Most of the new IDPs this scribe talked to at the Jalozai camp and at enlistment points in Peshawar and Jamrud complained about absence of any official assistance to them. However, during the course of discussions it was revealed that of the total 21 IDPS with whom this scribe interacted, only five were new arrivals and were thus not yet registered. The rest were already registered with FDMA since 2009 and had moved back to Bara in 2013 and 2014 while still receiving their monthly ration from food distribution points in and outside Jalozai camp.

Some of the new TDPs could not be registered because they had not yet acquired their computerized national identity cards. Ahmad, 17, accompanied by his mother, three younger brothers and five sisters had to rent a single-room house near Jalozai camp for Rs3,000 a month as none of his family member possessed CNIC. He said that his father died of illness 11 years ago and their house in Kulla area of Tirah was burnt down by ‘unknown people’. Ahmad too was reluctant to accuse activists of ‘Tanzeem’ for torching his house.

FDMA has set CNIC as a condition for registration for all IDPS from Fata. And while most of the TDPs complained that they were not properly taken care of by the government agencies, the FDMA officials argued that they were yet to start registration of the new dislocated families as they were in the process of comparing their older data of already registered families with Nadra to ascertain the exact number of new displaced families.

Outgoing FDMA director general Aneela Mehfooz Durrani told Dawn that her authority has so far enlisted 63,000 displaced families from Bara and Tirah at Kata Panra in Orakzai Agency, Batta Thal, Samghakhy checkpost, Peshtakhara-Ring Road and Lala Kandaw in Jamrud enlistment points established since Oct 16 when Khyber One military operation was started.

She said that most of the IDPs were angered by the lack of facilities from her authority as many were unaware about the difference between the process of ‘enlistment’ and permanent registration. “No doubt our primary responsibility is to facilitate the affected people, but as most of the Bara IDPs had gone back to their areas in Bara without any intimation to our authority during the last two years, it is now imperative to ascertain the number of older IDPs and then start registering the new ones,” she explained.

Ms Aneela said that her authority verified from Nadra the data of around 35,000 families enlisted at different points and it was found that of those only 9,300 were new displaced families.

She said that a screening centre was also established at Jalozai camp to screen out unregistered families before they enter the camp. “Our authority cannot re-register the older families as it would put additional financial burden on us,” she insisted.

She said that her authority has so far spent Rs47.6 million by providing transportation to almost all the recently displaced families from Bara and Tirah while those families who had their own transport were given Rs2,500 in fuel charges.

The FDMA, she said, spent another Rs14.9 million on provision of one time cooked food to every family reaching any of the designated enlistment centers. In addition, the FDMA is regularly providing funds to the Peshawar Electric Supply Company to ensure uninterrupted power supply to Jalozai camp, Ms Aneela said. She added that her authority had requested the federal government for release of Rs250 million as more displaced families from Bara and Tirah were expected to arrive at the enlistment centres in coming days and weeks.

Published in Dawn, November 23rd, 2014