PESHAWAR: A small cluster of Christian families in Pakistan’s volatile tribal region celebrated Christmas in a modest church building surrounded by the craggy mountains of Wana in the South Waziristan district on Monday, a top religious leader of the community confirmed while speaking to Arab News.

Situated near Pakistan’s porous border with Afghanistan, Wana was once a hub for militants targeting civilians and security forces nationwide, aiming to impose Islamic rule. Yet, it continued to harbor its Christian residents who migrated there before the creation of Pakistan and chose to stay despite the surrounding turmoil.

“Like every year, this year too, we have celebrated Christmas with the attendance of civil and security officials,” Zeeshan Alam, 36-year-old pastor at the Wana Gospel Pentecostal Church, told Arab News on Tuesday. “We have almost 50 Christian families living in Wana, the headquarters of the South Waziristan tribal district, even before the creation of Pakistan.”

Until May 2018, South Waziristan was part of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) that acted as a buffer zone between Pakistan and Afghanistan and was governed by colonial era laws before it was merged with the neighboring Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

Alam said the foundation stone of the church was laid in January 2000 after several requests were made by the local Christian community. With an eight-foot-high wall and a single-story building, the church can accommodate about 300 worshippers and is located near the central mosque in Wana.

“Our people have been employed in different departments of Wana where they work in various capacities,” he continued. “Some of them are part of the local administration while others work with the Frontier Constabulary, the sanitation department and the District Headquarters Hospital in Wana.”

Alam himself has a master’s degree in business administration and has received religious education from theological schools in Karachi and Gujranwala.

He informed that most of the Christians had come to Wana from Punjab or nearby places like Dera Ismail Khan, adding despite all the militant violence in the region, the Christians had never thought about migrating elsewhere.

Robin Masih, a Christian resident of the area, agreed that his community had peacefully lived with the local population.

“Christians can blend with the local tribal population since we have been living with them for decades now,” he said. “We even speak the same local language.”

Speaking to Arab News, Anwar Wazir, a tribal elder, said Christians in Wana had largely remained at peace despite the extremist violence.

“It is a source of consolation for us that Christians have never been hurt during years of militancy here,” he said. “There isn’t even a single precedent in which a Christian was hurt or abducted for ransom. While religious militancy plagued the entire region, the local population showed no sectarian tendencies.”