Collapse of Pakistan Truce Worsens Refugee Crisis

Residents prepare to flee from Mingora, the main town in Pakistan's Swat Valley. (Associated Press)

By ZAHID HUSSAIN
Wall Street Journal

ISLAMABAD -- Thousands of residents fled Swat Valley on foot and crammed into buses, vans and trucks, following the breakdown of a truce between Pakistani forces and the Taliban.

As many as 500,000 people are expected to flee the valley -- formerly home to 1.5 million people -- in the near future, said Mian Iftikhar Hussain, the information minister for North West Frontier Province, which includes Swat.

Khushal Khan, head of the local administration, urged residents to leave their homes before evening as fighting between the army and militants broke out again. Pakistan's military resumed fighting the Taliban in Swat this week after each side accused the other of failing to honor the terms of a peace accord struck in February to end the conflict in Swat in return for the imposition of Islamic law.

(More here.)