Displaced tribesmen in Pakistan to be resettled from mid-March

ISLAMABAD: Beginning next month, nearly 70,000 people who were displaced in 2009 due to a military operation in Pakistan's South Waziristan will be resettled back in the tribal region, an official said today.

The people had to move out of the trouble-torn region in the northwestern part of the country when the Pakistan Army launched the Rah-e-Nijat (Path of Salvation) offensive against Taliban militants in the region, then considered a militant stronghold.

Most of the displaced people were settled in Dera Ismail Khan and Tank districts of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province.

After the operation, the Army seized control of all major towns from the Taliban even as the rebels fled to mountainous countryside to launch targeted attacks.

The rehabilitation process was initiated in 2012 but only a fraction of the displaced people could be sent back then.

Now with the situation improving in the region, Nawab Safi, the Assistant Political Officer of South Waziristan, said, "The process to rehabilitate the displaced people of South Waziristan will begin on March 16."

Around eight thousand people will return to their villages in Sararogha and Sarokai districts in the first phase of rehabilitation, Safi added.

The displaced people had been frequently demanding from the government to allow them to go back.

There are also reports that settlement of more than one million people displaced by last year's operation in North Waziristan may also begin from March.