Survival after the flood

The people of Swat Valley, in Pakistan, have been dealt a double blow, first under the Taliban, then by August’s floods. Now they’re trying to rebuild their lives

NAZ BEGUM remembers watching the rain from the windows of her house and wondering if it would ever stop. Three days later the river began to rise to alarming levels, but still her father-in-law insisted that the family stay put. Only when a nearby bridge collapsed under the raging torrent did they decide to flee. Begum wipes away tears as she recalls what happened next. Her husband, after bringing their elderly parents to higher ground, returned for her and their infant son. Struggling through the waist-high waters with her baby, she looked back to see her husband buckle under falling bricks loosened by the swirling current. Within seconds he was carried away. His body was found downstream some days later. “We may have survived but our lives are ruined forever,” says Begum, surrounded by her six children. “I can’t bear to think of the future.”

Hers is one of thousands of lives left devastated in the villages and hamlets that cling to hillsides in the picturesque Swat Valley, a once-popular tourist destination nestled in the fabled Hindu Kush. It was here that the floods that washed down the length of Pakistan in August began. Swat was also where the waters were at their most destructive, coursing through its lush mountains with a deadly momentum that slowed only when the flood neared central Punjab and the flat plains of southern Pakistan.

In some parts of Swat, the floodwaters left behind a grey, boulder-strewn landscape along the valley floor where thriving villages once stood. Homes, schools and hospitals simply disappeared. In the town of Madyan, about halfway up the valley, the bazaar and scores of buildings crumbled as the ground beneath gave way to the gushing torrent. Teetering on the edge of a cliff above the riverbed today are houses sliced in two, the interiors exposed. Below, the entire roof of what was once a large building lies intact on the rubble as if it had been lifted and then discarded by a giant hand.

When the rains began in late July, the people of Swat had only just started to put their lives back together after years caught in the grip of swaggering, black-turbaned Taliban. A 2009 army offensive to dislodge the militants and their leader Mullah Fazlullah had prompted the exodus of some two million Swatis, a displacement UNHCR, the UN’s refugee agency, compared to that caused by the Rwandan genocide. Many had started trickling back after the military declared the Taliban had been routed from the valley.

Reconstruction of towns pummelled during the army operation began. Children made a tentative return to schools that had survived Taliban attacks. Crudely painted versions of the Pakistani flag, with its white crescent on green background, began appearing on shop fronts and walls. A festival, part of efforts to help restore the tourism that was once the backbone of Swat’s economy, took place in early July. Many Swatis dared to hope the darkest days were behind them.

“The floods could not have come at a worse time,” says Maj Gen Ishfaq Nadeem Ahmad, who oversees military operations in Swat. “It had a huge impact, happening so soon after the militants. So much reconstruction work, including schools, bridges and clinics, was just washed away. In many places, we have had to start all over again.”

The task of getting Swat back on its feet is not just limited to rebuilding the more than 40 torn bridges, the hundreds of collapsed homes, schools and shops, and the tens of thousands of acres of farmland washed away in the floods. The mental scars from years of Taliban violence and displacement run deep, says Sidra Anwar, a psychologist who works at a UNHCR-funded welfare centre in Madyan. “The people of Swat, who were very poor to begin with, have suffered immense trauma. The experience of being displaced twice in just two years has caused many problems, especially for children.” Some of the children Anwar has examined are afraid to go to school because so many were attacked by militants. Others are reluctant to go near the river due to the floods. Several suffer from flashbacks and nightmares. The sight of heavily bearded men or guns can trigger disturbing memories of the Taliban.

“We have seen and endured so much in the last two years,” says Gulshad Begum, who lives with her husband and nine children in a single room. They fled their home when the army started shelling the area. When they returned everything apart from one room had been reduced to rubble. “It is one thing after the other. This is all Allah’s curse.”

Many in Swat and other corners of Pakistan knocked sideways by the floods say the same. The Taliban have also weighed in, claiming the deluge was divine retribution. But former militant redoubts were not spared as the swollen river crashed through the valley. Down a rutted dirt track on the other side of the riverbed lies the hamlet of Imam Dheri, once home to the mosque and madrassa complex from where Mullah Fazlullah directed his bearded minions. A village elder named Ibrahim points at a wall to show how high the floodwaters reached, before drawing attention to the layers of silt they left behind on the square where Fazlullah’s men had flogged wrongdoers.

“Three people drowned, our farm land was destroyed and most of the houses on the riverside were badly damaged,” he says. “It will take a long time for us to recover.” The house where Fazlullah lived, and the mosque where he held court, had already been levelled in last year’s fighting. “All of that is in the past,” insists Ibrahim. “There is no possibility of the militants returning here. People are completely against them.”

Hayat Nawab, a 20-year-old with a wispy beard, agrees. Both he and his brother were arrested due to suspected militant links. He was released, but his sibling remains in custody. “People thought Fazlullah just wanted to bring a proper Islamic system to the area and that is why he had support at the beginning,” Hayat says. “Then we saw his real face and the way his men beat and killed people. We don’t want them here anymore.”

In the nearby town of Mingora, the music shops forced to close when the Taliban held sway are now back in business. Many of the men in the choked bazaar are clean-shaven. The intersection where the militants beheaded dissenters and suspected spies, stringing up the bodies on a telegraph pole as a warning, is no longer known as Khooni Chowk (Bloody Square). Today it heaves with traffic and shoppers, some of them women whose heads are covered with traditional shawls instead of burqas, examining items forbidden by the Taliban, including CD players.

But the Taliban have not completely gone away in Swat. A number of schools have been torched since August. Syed Inam-ur-Rehman, president of the local “peace jirga” – one of several such committees established to coordinate with the authorities in Pakistan’s northwest – says eight colleagues across the region have been killed since January. There have been a number of suicide bombings and confrontations between militants and security forces. In recent weeks, Pakistani media reports have claimed Fazlullah is plotting a comeback following his return to Pakistan’s borderlands after a spell in Afghanistan.

“Some militants managed to escape the army operation and are now trying to establish themselves again,” says Maj Gen Ishfaq, sitting in an army base at the Malakand Pass. Hanging on the wall outside are dozens of framed portraits of Pakistani soldiers who have died battling the Taliban. “The militants will always continue to attempt something but the public is now very supportive of our presence in the area and they inform us of any suspicious activity. Because of this, I don’t think the militants will be able to regroup again in Swat for a sustained campaign.”

Despite all the army rhetoric that the people of Swat are now on-side, tensions remain. While some Swatis say they voluntarily painted the Pakistani flags that decorate almost every shop shutter to send a message to the militants, others told me they were ordered to by the army. Human rights groups have raised concerns over how the offensive against the Taliban was conducted. The army launched an inquiry in October after a video purporting to show soldiers executing blindfolded men in Swat was widely circulated. In one hamlet I visited, residents claimed a similar incident had taken place in a nearby village. Some Swatis say family members were killed because they were wrongly suspected of being militants.

Muhammad Badshah, principal of a boys’ school near Mingora, says the challenges faced by Swat sometimes appear overwhelming. His pupils study in tents pitched amid the ruins of classrooms destroyed by the Taliban. “The militants tried to reverse Swat’s development, and the floods have only made it worse. It will take us years, if not decades, to return to what we had before.”