‘The people were nothing’

THOUSANDS of Pakistanis have had their homes reduced to rubble by mortar shells, but some victims of the armed conflict may as well have been bombed back to the 19th century.

Off a dirt road and through fields of maize growing under the burning sun near the town of Swabi are a series of mud caves, built by farmers for their livestock and now hosting families with nowhere else to go.

Seven families live in these caves, but in recent months the number of families living in these conditions numbered as many as 70. Like a scene from a dog-eared copy of National Geographic, home for the remaining families is a place cleaved out of the earth, a place liable to be washed away at any time by heavy rains. Shah Jehan, one of the men staying in the caves with his wife and children, tries to remember how old he is. Like many of those still living in the caves, he is from a poorer tribe and remarkably stoical. “I want to go home because it is too hot and I have no food for the animals,” he says. All-but-ignored by local government, his family have been supplied with essential food by the rural development project (RDP).

Ten people, including six children, live in the two adjoining caves here, and in the same valley three more caves are home to three families. Their wood houses back in the mountains of Swat are little more than a memory now. A man who gives his name as Umardin, from Bat Khela, is one of the eldest people living here.

“I had a very small business, but in front of my eyes three people were killed by the army – that is why I left,” he says. “I had not seen such cruelty before.” His house was destroyed in the bombardment. Luckily, his son-in-law was already living near Haripur so they could flee here, although the lack of space there has meant he and his own family had little choice but to live in the caves.

Translating his words, RDP project co-ordinator Muhammad Rizwan Khan, sums it up: “It was the war between the Taliban and the army and the people were nothing – they were just caught in between.”