Pakistan’s New IDPs
Ashfaq Yusufazai
Even from a distance, the Sheihk Yasin Camp on the Mardan-Charsadda Road in northern Pakistan looks bleak. The heavily armed guards at the main entrance, where visitors are subjected to a body search, to the rows of greenish-gray tents amidst the hot, dry climate, portend much illness and suffering among its inhabitants, Pakistan's newly displaced population.
Sheihk Yasin is one of 23 makeshift camps established largely by the United Nations following the April 26 military action Pakistan launched against Islamic militants in its North West Frontier Province. An estimated 3 million civilians fled to the adjacent provinces of Mardan, Swabi and Peshawar. Of these, around 80 percent live with host communities and about 500,000 displaced people live in camps.
The strain of displacement has left an indelible mark among many in this population. Dr. Mian Iftikhar Hussain, a psychiatrist at one of the camps, estimates 50 percent of the women suffer from mental disorders after witnessing the deaths of their loved ones and the destruction of their properties. The relative comfort of their old lives lies amidst the rubble they left behind.
"[We] traveled on foot for hours along with other women and children after failing to get a vehicle to transport us to a safer place," says Jamila Bibi, a 39-year-old housewife who now lives in Sheikh Yasin.
