Tens of thousands of people have left Pakistan’s Tirah Valley after mosque announcements warned of possible military action, though officials deny any planned operation
Thousands of residents have moved out of a remote mountainous area in northwestern
Pakistan in recent weeks after mosque announcements urged families to leave in anticipation of possible conflict. The departures have taken place in the Tirah Valley of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, near the Afghan border, with people relocating to nearby towns despite severe winter weather, according to residents.
Residents said warnings broadcast from mosques advised people to evacuate to avoid potential clashes.
“The announcements were made in the mosque that everyone should leave, so everyone was leaving. We left too,” said Gul Afridi, a shopkeeper who moved with his family to Bara, a town 71 km (44 miles) east of the Tirah Valley.
Local officials in the area, speaking on condition of anonymity, said thousands of families had departed and were being registered for assistance in nearby towns.
The Tirah
Valley has been considered a sensitive security zone and a base for Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, an Islamist militant group responsible for attacks on Pakistani security forces.
Government and military responses
The Pakistani government has not formally announced any evacuation or military operation. On Tuesday, Defence Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif rejected suggestions that an operation was planned or underway in Tirah, describing the movement as a routine seasonal migration linked to harsh winter conditions.
A Pakistani military source familiar with the situation gave a different account, saying the relocations followed months of discussions among tribal elders, district officials and security authorities regarding the presence of militants in Tirah. The source said militants were operating among civilian populations and exerting pressure on residents.
The source declined to be identified as they were not authorised to speak to the media.
The source said civilians were encouraged to temporarily leave to reduce the risk of harm as “targeted intelligence-based operations” continued, adding there had been no build-up for a large-scale offensive due to the area’s mountainous terrain and winter conditions.
Pakistan’s military media wing, the Inter-Services Public Relations, the interior ministry, and the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provincial government did not respond to requests for comment made on Friday.
Residents rejected suggestions that winter alone drove the movement.
“No one left because of the cold,” said Abdur Rahim, who said he left his village for Bara earlier this month after hearing evacuation announcements. “It has been snowing for years. We have lived there all our lives. People left because of the announcements.”
Gul Afridi described a perilous journey through snowbound roads along with food shortages that made the evacuation an ordeal that took his family nearly a week.
“Here I have no home, no support for business. I don’t know what is destined for us,” he said at a government school in Bara where hundreds of displaced people lined up to register for assistance, complaining of slow processes and uncertainty over how long they would remain displaced.
Abdul Azeem, another displaced resident, said families were stranded for days and that children died along the way. “There were a lot of difficulties. People were stuck because of the snow,” he said.
The Tirah Valley drew national attention in September after a deadly explosion at a suspected bomb-making site, with officials and local leaders offering conflicting accounts of whether civilians were among the dead.
(With agency inputs)
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