New York- The Pakistani authorities should immediately lift a 24-hour curfew in place since May 18 in the Swat valley and adjoining areas of the Malakand Division of Pakistan’s Provincially Administered Tribal Areas (PATA), Human Rights Watch said today. Severe shortages of food, water, and medicine are creating a major humanitarian crisis for the hundreds of thousands of civilians still trapped in the region where Pakistani armed forces are fighting Taliban insurgents.

Human Rights Watch has continued to receive persistent reports of ongoing civilian casualties from Pakistani artillery shelling and aerial bombardment as desperate civilians break the curfew in search of food and water or to flee hostilities. Even with a curfew in place, international humanitarian law requires all parties to a conflict to take all necessary measures to minimize casualties

“People trapped in the Swat conflict zone face a humanitarian catastrophe unless the Pakistani military immediately lifts a curfew that has been in place continuously for the last week,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The government cannot allow the local population to remain trapped without food, clean water, and medicine as a tactic to defeat the Taliban.”

Human Rights Watch investigations have established that thousands of civilians ordered by the army to vacate the villages of Guljaba and Aligrama, among others, of the Kabal sub-district of Swat remain trapped in Chakdara, a town in Lower Dir district. Speaking to Human Rights Watch on May 25, villagers reported that they were ordered out of their homes by the Pakistani boy and others swelter in extreme heat as they are forced to leave their homes.military authorities on May 22 and told to head for Chakdara and beyond to safe areas. However, once they reached Chakdara the same day, they were prevented from traveling further or going back. The town of Chakdara itself remains under 24-hour curfew and fleeing civilians reported that they were without shelter and lacked food, water, and medicines. The trapped civilians reported that many of them were suffering from dehydration and other health problems and their children were particularly weak and vulnerable.

Residents of Swat fleeing into the districts of Mardan and Swabi
also reported a worsening humanitarian situation in these areas. They
told Human Rights Watch that the prices of essential food items, when
available, had risen tenfold, that scarcity of water had reached a
critical point, and that the continuous curfew meant that residents
risked their lives if they ventured out in search of food. Dead bodies
lay unburied and the critically injured faced likely death as all
medical facilities in the valley had shut down and medicines were
unavailable.

“The Pakistani government should take all possible measures
including airdrops of food, water, and medicine to quickly alleviate
large-scale human suffering in Swat,” said Adams. “Both sides should
allow a humanitarian corridor that would let civilians escape the
fighting and for impartial humanitarian agencies to evacuate and aid
civilians at risk.”

Human Rights Watch expressed concern about continued summary
executions by the Taliban and civilian casualties from shelling by the
Pakistani military. Internally displaced persons who had fled to Swabi
district from Khwaza Khela village in Swat told Human Rights Watch that
on May 18 the Taliban publicly beheaded in the local mosque a villager
named Kalimoon Khan, who had joined 10 others in a delegation to a
Pakistani military checkpost to request the military not bombard their
village. The Taliban accused them of being informants for the Pakistan
army and badly beat three of them, beheaded Khan, and threatened to
hunt down and kill the rest. Human Rights Watch also spoke to a
villager who described heavy shelling on May 19 that resulted in the
deaths of 11 civilians from the village, none of whom were Taliban.

Separately, a resident of Charbagh village in Swat told Human Rights
Watch that villagers were unaware of any Taliban presence in the
village when, on May 12, the Pakistani military fired a missile that
struck the central market, killing one resident instantly and injuring
another. When villagers rushed to the scene to retrieve the casualties,
another missile hit the same location, killing another nine civilians
and wounding eight. The resident said that, after the second attack,
villagers were too scared to come to the aid of the injured, but the
screams of the injured proved difficult to ignore and 30 minutes later
more villagers went to collect the bodies and administer to the
wounded. A third missile then struck in the area. In total 19 civilians
were reportedly killed and 30 wounded in these attacks, including two
children who died of their injuries due to lack of medical care.

Human Rights Watch said that because the area where the fighting
continues is a closed military zone with journalists and human rights
monitors barred from entering, it is currently not possible to verify
this information independently. Local journalists have left the area,
and the army is not permitting Pakistani reporters or foreign
correspondents to enter.

“Civilians continue to suffer at the hands of the Taliban and now
their misery is being compounded by the military’s disregard for
civilians and refusal to allow them to leave the conflict zone,” said
Adams. “If the Taliban are to be truly defeated, Pakistan’s military
must act to ease the suffering of the people of Swat, not compound it.”

Massive Number of Police Desertions Reported in Pakistan's Swat Valley

Since the Pakistani military began its offensive in the Swat Valley, police across the valley and surrounding area have been deserting from their respective departments at an alarming rate. Over 30 percent of the overall force of the Malakand division have quit or simply stopped showing up for work in the past several months.

In the Buner district, which was among the first targets of the offensive, the number was a shocking 77.5%, as the source claimed that “310 cops out of the total 400 policemen have reportedly deserted the force.” Across the Swat Valley itself, 820 out of 2,000 deserted. In Upper and Lower Dir, roughly 250 out of 2,100 have left. The Buner police encouraged their members to flee with their families at the start of the offensive, but to report in after they arrived in camps. They eagerly left, but few appear to be reporting in.

Many national police are declining to be assigned to the area, preferring to quit instead of being deployed in Swat. Assignments to the picturesque valley have become incredibly dangerous, with the Taliban factions occupying or burning many of the stations, and capturing police in some towns.

Fighting across the Swat Valley has been slow for the military and disastrous for the civilians, millions of whom have been chased from their homes. As President Asif Ali Zardari vows to expand the war into many other portion’s of Pakistan’s northern frontier, it seems the number of places unpleasant for police and civilians alike is going to grow precipitously.