Swat — a land twice blighted

Swat is perhaps the unluckiest of places in the country. First it was hit by a militant insurgency and as a result more than 1.5 million Swatis had to leave their homes and became internally displaced persons. Two weeks ago the people of Swat were celebrating peace in the valley after the last military operation, Operation Rah-e-Rast. Who knew that in their fate lay another disaster — this time a natural one — in the form of the worst floods that the region has been faced with in living memory. The whole valley has been badly hit by the floods and the upper stretches of the district, Swat Kohistan as it is called, has been the worst affected. Being hilly and narrow the upper valley beyond Madyan up to Utror via Bahrain and Kalam has been particularly hit. Here, roads, villages, hotels and even markets have been swept away by the flood. Bahrain, Kalam, Madyan, Mankiyal, Peshmal, Utror do not exist as they did prior to the flood with much of their structures under water or extensively damaged.

From Madyan to Utror about 60 hotels, 600 houses and all the markets along the Swat river have been swept away. In addition to this the Swat river’s tributaries have played havoc in their respective valleys such as Daral, Chail, Oraan, Mankiyal, Cham Ghari, Peshmal, Utror and Ushoo and over 6,000 people have been rendered homeless. Clearly, the major issue is that even when the water recedes, there is nothing left really for people to return to and they will have to, in most cases, start from scratch. Beyond Madyan the Swat river splits the valley into two ranges of mountains which run about 40 kilometres. The river has submerged all the link bridges between the two ranges, which essentially means that upper Swat has been divided into eastern and western regions with no land link between the two. As a result, people are walking several kilometres in search of goods and water.

One major road which is intact and usable is on the eastern side of the Swat river. It runs from Mingora up to a place called Chickri which is at a distance of 25 kilometres from Bahrain. Beyond that point there is now no road link up to the popular tourist town of Kalam. So far there has been no government intervention in the area except for a few helicopters which came to ferry over 5,000 tourists stranded in Bahrain and Kalam.

A human tragedy could result if something is not done immediately to ferry food and medicine to the people of the valley, especially its upper reaches. There is a road to Upper Dir via Utror which should be restored to provide an alternative route connecting Kalam with Upper Dir. The main road and bridges from Chikri to Bahrain through Madyan must be built on an emergency basis as well.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 4^th, 2010.