By Sardar Hussain
PESHAWAR, Pakistan
In the six months since Pakistan's army began its anti-militant operation in the northwestern region of North Waziristan, stories have flowed from the nearly 1 million internal refugees it created.
Some of the worst suffering has been borne by displaced women and children, as testified by 90-year old Ameer Khela. Living in a relief camp frustrates her but not as much as being away from her ancestral village.
“I want to go back home to pass my final days and nights in my own village and the house where for the first time I dressed in red, as a bride,” she says. “Life in the camp is as if someone has choked me."
Ameer's eyes begin to well with tears as she shares the story of the two day walk from her home in North Waziristan's main town Miranshah to the relief camps in the adjoining Bannu district.
She is still living in a camp, together with 45 other members of her family. She says she misses the tranquillity of her home district. Looking into the faces of her children and grandchildren, pale and dejected after six months stranded, deepens her misery, she says.
One of her sons went missing as they fled North Waziristan. A daughter passed away during the journey.
She fiddles with the edge of her chador -- a long cloak used by women to cover their body -- and brushes away her tears before continuing: “She was already seriously ill and she trudged half way, but couldn’t reach the camp.”
"There are too many troubles to bewail over, but I resist myself from becoming weaker," she says. "At the same time I am a human with a beating heart and a mother with a heart that’s full of motherly love, that's why I wept in front of you.”
“I have never come across such a difficult time in my entire life,” she revealed. “Only a couple of years ago none could have imagined that Waziristan would turn into a hellhole for its residents, where some of its enchanting villages will become the venues of a bloody and, it seems, an endless war."
"Even during the British time in the region, Waziristan didn’t witness death and destruction on such a scale.”
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