Around 30,000 people of Lower Dir district near the Taliban-held Swat valley have been displaced by the Pak army mounted Operation Black Thunder to flush out Taleban militants.
‘Up to 30,000 people have left Mardan in Lower Dir district’, Mian Iftikhar Hussain, the NWFP Minister for Information told reporters in Peshawar on Tuesday. The operation was mounted on Sunday (April 26, 2009)
‘We are making arrangements for them in Peshawar, Nowshera and Timargarah districts’, he told a news conference.
Local reports say that thousands of terrified people, mostly women and children, left the area with their belongings after military offensive started.
Officials said that around 50 insurgents and eight paramilitary soldiers were killed in the operation so far.
Heavy artillery shelling is reported from the area since Monday night.
