MARDAN: A top US envoy visited refugees who have fled fighting between military and Taliban and told them Thursday that the United States can't offer them security, but it can offer them aid.

‘It's up to the Pakistan army to give you security —that is not our job,’ Richard Holbrooke said Thursday, going tent by tent to talk to refugees in a camp in Mardan. But he said the US could help on the humanitarian front. ‘We are giving assistance.’

The visit by Holbrooke, the top US envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan, is one of a series of unusually high-profile gestures by US officials here in the wake of the refugee crisis.

Up to 3 million people have been displaced by military's month-old operation in the Swat Valley and surrounding areas.

US officials who visit or work in Pakistan tend to be careful in advertising their presence or aid projects due to worries about security in a country where anti-Americanism runs deep.

The US has already pledged $110 million in aid to the refugees, and the White House is pushing to send another $200 million.

Holbrooke and his entourage flew into the camps using four helicopters whose arrival spurred a quick sandstorm in the already dusty, hot camps. The group was accompanied by a heavy contingent of US and Pakistani security.

The camps Holbrooke visited were run by the Red Cross and the UN. The envoy asked refugees for their individual stories and about the Taliban. Many refugees said they needed electric fans for the sweltering heat, and complained about the food.

Abdul Sajid, a farmer from the Buner district just south of Swat, told Holbrooke: ‘Our crops are destroyed, and we are getting nothing here. It is coming, the food, but it is not good. I am not satisfied with the conditions at the camp. Now we need your help.’

The US has given a lot of support, ‘but it is up to the United Nations and the Pakistan government to carry out the programs. We are not in the camps,’ Holbrooke replied.—AP