In North Waziristan, tribesmen turn to faith healers for cure

Many come to the late Pir Mir Sardar’s family, believing blessed salt and a black thread will purge the disease.

MIRANSHAH: As millions of rupees continue to be spent on the eradication of polio from the country, the viral disease continues to thrive and spread in North Waziristan Agency (NWA) amidst a ‘ban’ on vaccination imposed by the Taliban.

As a result, locals have decided to turn to a local pir to find a cure for their children from the crippling disease.

Faith healers

Mir Akhtar travelled all the way from the remote Shewa tehsil situated on the border of North and South Waziristan agencies and reached Chatoon village of Miranshah, headquarters of NWA, to seek assistance from a local ‘healer’.

Sitting in the hujra of late Pir Mir Sardar, a cleric who used to cure patients of epilepsy and polio by blessing them, Akhtar told The Express Tribune he brought his one-year-old son affected by polio to the late cleric’s descendants, who claim they can cure polio by giving blessed salt and tying a black thread around the child’s feet.

Akhtar has been visiting the Mir Sardar family frequently for his son’s cure and insisted the family had cured several polio and epileptic patients with blessed salt and black thread and by telling them to avoid sour food items for seven weeks. “We can feel improvement in my son’s physical condition after giving him the blessed salt,” he maintained. However, Akhtar failed to explain the nature of the improvement.

“They don’t charge a single penny from patients of polio and epilepsy,” said Zaman Wazir, who had brought his eight-month-old daughter to Mir Sardar’s hujra.

Wazir claimed visiting the healers for seven weeks would exterminate polio from his daughter’s body. He further added since his daughter was too young to consume the salt, his wife had been taking it in order to pass it on while breastfeeding the child.

“Many people have been cured by Pir Sardar and his descendants’ blessings,” he maintained.

Wazir insisted he was not against the polio vaccination, but the unavailability of the vaccine after the Taliban-imposed ban had left them no choice but to visit the faith healers.

While the locals claimed the pir and his family had cured many people in Miranshah, they failed to mention the name of a single patient cured of polio by consuming the salt and tying the thread.

Alarming figures

A health department official associated with the polio eradication campaign in NWA claimed, “Most of the polio cases are reported from Dosali, Speen Waam, Mir Ali and Shewa tehsil of the agency.”

A paediatrician at Agency Headquarters Hospital explained most of the tribesmen believe  the deformity caused by polio is not permanent because of lack of awareness. He added that was also the reason why they took their children to Mir Sardar’s family for a cure.

On June 19, 2012, the Taliban imposed a ban on anti-polio vaccinations in NWA, stipulating the restriction would last till drone attacks cease. Since then, no one in the entire agency has been able to get their children vaccinated.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 24^th, 2013.