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| Paradise Encircled by Hell |
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| Jannat expresses |
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| “My parents named me Jannat means paradise but Taliban made my life like a hell. I am 11 years old girl, studying in 4th grade. First they threatened my school teachers, intimidated my school fellows, and then blew my school with explosives. For the last 3 months, I am not going to school. I was staying in Mingora city (capital of Swat) with my parents. I have 2 sisters and 3 brothers. When I was in Mingora, everyday I used to hear brutal stories of Taliban like horror movies. I never had the courage to visit Sheen Chowk (Green Square) because every morning people found a fresh corpse with warning if somebody tried to resist or disobeyed Taliban’s Hukam (order). Sheen Chowk became a ghost square. Then a military operation started. Every night we heard thunder of fighter’s planes, explosions and firing. Heavy fighting was going on the streets of my beautiful city. Electricity, water supply and natural gas had gone weeks before. Death was on our doorstep and everyday we saw dead bodies of our dear ones. A question rose in my mind if I was destined to live in Jahannum (hell) why did my parents name me Jannat? One day early in the morning my father decided to leave our home and go somewhere else. We were in hurry due to short relaxation in curfew; we left our home and ran towards the main road. After a few kilometers running, we saw a truck. There were already more than enough people trying to flee and save their lives. Luckily we rode on the truck and the army helped to flee. In a worse condition we reached to Shewa village (name of a village 120 km away from Mingora). We were provided a room in the building of Girls Primary School. Now we have a new identification i.e. IDPs; I never heard the word before. Local people are generous, kind and have been helping us cordially. However we have many problems; the weather is very hot; we don’t have cool water for drinking; we don’t have enough sheets and beds; we sleep on mats on the floor. There are so many mosquitoes. I am not happy here and I don’t want to be an IDP; I don’t want anybody in the world to be IDP. I miss my home. I am nostalgic about my city. I miss my school, my class fellows, my teachers, my books, and I miss everything even dust and noise of my city. Can anybody tell me when we will go back to our home and resume our lives with harmony and peace?” |
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| Jannat asks |
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| When Jannat was telling me her story, I was trying to hide tears in my eyes. I couldn’t look straight in her eyes. I just want to chat with her however she deepen my thinking. Now we have 90 IDPs; 30 in my own house, 15 in my neighbor’s house and 45 in a primary school in front of my house. Among them, 35 are children. In my village number of IDPs reached to 6000. I promised Jinnat that very soon I was going to start a home-based school for the children. That day I bought some drawing books and color pencils for the children . I am going to start a class for the children in my uncle’s house. So within few days we will have a classroom with a ceiling fan, mats, blackboard, some necessary books and a female teacher in my uncle house for 35 children to involve them and bring them out from post displacement trauma. That evening I provided them 10 Sheets, 10 Towels, Soaps and 2 ceiling fans. Further our village based organization SESWA (Shewa Educated Social Workers Association) have been providing required and necessary medicines to the IDPs. |
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| Content taken with the courtesy from AIRRA |
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