Faulty data: ‘1 million IDPs from South Waziristan overlooked’

Senator claims figures collected by NGO are false.

ISLAMABAD:

Refuting the data collected by a non-governmental organisation (NGO), according to which only 10 per cent of South Waziristan’s residents had suffered displacement, Senator Saleh Shah said on Friday, people had been forced to flee from five of its eight tehsils due to military operations. 

“The suffering of 0.1 million Mehsud tribesmen, who are living like refugees in miserable conditions in Tank and Dera Ismail Khan have been overlooked, said the senator from the restive South Waziristan Agency, during a chat with journalists.

Shah said that the figures collected by Community Appraisal and Motivation Programme (CAMP), an NGO, which were quoted by chairman of the Regional Institute of Policy Research in an article published in Dawn, contradicted ground realities.

The military operation launched in South Waziristan in September 2009 triggered mass migration from Ladha, Makeen, Srarogha, Sarweki and Khaisor tehsils.

“Thousands of houses vacated by Mehsuds were either washed away by rains or damaged in skirmishes between security forces and militants.”

He said the claim that 90 per cent of the people in South Waziristan had not been displaced was inconceivable.

The situation in NA-42, a constituency in South Waziristan, has deteriorated to such an extent that the people were not able to elect their representative for the national assembly, he added.

Senator Shah said the government should ask the NGO for an explanation. He added that he had lodged a protest over CAMP’s “irresponsible reporting of data collection” with the British High Commission in Islamabad.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 17^th, 2012.