In a message on World Refugees Day on Friday, Prime Minister Gilani appreciated the support of the international community for the approximately three million external refugees from Afghanistan living in Pakistan for the past three decades. This, the largest refugee population anywhere in the world, has over the years constituted a heavy burden on the Pakistani state. It also holds deep implications in the current context, for the scale of the Afghan refugee crisis must be juxtaposed with the issue of the people displaced internally by the fighting against the Taliban in the north-western parts of the country. Official estimates put the number of IDPs at over two million. The actual figure is likely to be much higher. 

Now, the government claims that some areas have been cleared of the militants and is sending out appeals for the IDPs to return. The issue is not so easily resolved, however. For one thing, the military operation is set to expand to other areas that continue to harbour militant cells, including Waziristan and parts of Fata. While necessary, the move will result in the destabilisation of civilian life — the further displacement of people is virtually certain. Secondly, the military continues to encounter pockets of resistance even in areas that the government has declared ‘safe’.

This, in conjunction with the fact that the administrative and utilities’ infrastructure of the affected areas is in tatters, means that the IDPs are reluctant to return to their hometowns. Of the estimated 700,000 people who fled Buner, for example, only about 6,000 have returned after the area was declared ‘safe’, according to District Coordination Officer Yahya Akhundzada. Stressing the need for people to start returning to the secured areas, Mr Akhundzada noted rightly that this would build confidence which would contribute to the defeat of the Taliban. But the government must offer more than mere assurances of safety.

It must demonstrate the administrative resolve to reconstruct the battle-ravaged areas, which includes setting up education and health facilities and creating employment opportunities. It must also demonstrate the ability to rehabilitate the IDPs. Most importantly, the government must show the political will to change policies that allowed the creation of the militant-Taliban nexus in the first place. Otherwise, Pakistan risks adding the IDPs issue to the Afghan refugee crisis which remains unresolved despite the passage of three decades, and of continuing to create circumstances that stoke extremism.