Around 30,000 people in northwest Pakistan have been displaced by a military offensive to flush out Taliban militants, a provincial minister said on Tuesday.
“Up to 30,000 people have left Maidan in Lower Dir district over the past few days,” Mian Iftikhar Hussain, information minister in the government of North West Frontier Province, told a news conference.
“We are making arrangements for them in Peshawar, Nowshera and Timargarah districts.”
Residents said thousands of terrified people, mostly women and children, left the area with their belongings after Pakistan troops and helicopter gunships launched the operation over the weekend.
One local charity said it had registered 2,241 displaced families so far.
Around 50 insurgents were killed in the operation in Lower Dir, near the Taliban-held Swat valley, officials said.
The military said eight paramilitary soldiers had also been killed since it launched Operation Black Thunder on Sunday.
Meanwhile, Pakistani troops backed by war planes launched a new operation in Buner town near the Swat valley on Tuesday, as Islamabad intensified its efforts to flush out Taliban militants there.
A senior military official earlier said war planes were pounding suspected militant hideouts on the mountains overlooking the town, but he had no casualty figures.
