Residents of the Khyber Agency, one of seven administrative districts that comprise northern Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), are in the worst possible predicament: either course of action they choose now, they say, could result in death. As Pakistan’s military offensive against the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) expands slowly from North Waziristan Agency to the […]

Imagine traveling for almost an entire day in the blistering sun, carrying all your possessions with you. Imagine fleeing in the middle of the night as airstrikes reduce your village to rubble. Imagine arriving in a makeshift refugee camp where there is no running water, no bathrooms and hardly any food. Now imagine making that […]

Some fled on foot, others boarded trucks along with luggage, rations and cattle. Many were separated from families, or collapsed from exhaustion along the way. They don’t know where their next meal will come from, or how they will provide for their children. In the vast refugee camps of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, civilians […]

With its lush valleys and well-watered plains, Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province produces plenty of food for the local population, including 10 million tons of wheat every year. So why are the people of this bountiful mountainous region going hungry? The answer lies just across the 2,400-km-long border that separates the country from neighbouring […]

Pakistan may have low prevalence of HIV/AIDS, with only about 9,000 officially confirmed cases, but the country is at high risk, particularly due to a growing number of injecting drug users (IDUs), say experts. Of the country’s 180 million people, 420,000 are IDUs according to the Drug Use in Pakistan survey conducted last year. “IDUs […]

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Disturbed by civilian casualties and moved by the plight of people living like refugees in their own country, students from Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) are demanding an end to army operations against militants on their native soil. “We are sick of military action in FATA as it has not eliminated the Taliban but […]

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