PESHAWAR: Aid flights landed in a remote Pakistan valley on Tuesday where thousands of people are stranded because of sectarian clashes that have killed more than 200 people since July.
Residents have reported food and medicine shortages in parts of Kurram district, which borders Afghanistan, as the government struggles to end a reignited feud between Sunni and Shiite Muslims stemming from decades-old tensions over farmland.
Sher Gul, the head of private welfare organization Edhi, said they would make several flights a day from the city of Peshawar to the valley for the rest of the week, depending on weather.
“We plan to bring around three wounded back on each flight... and deliver medicines for the injured,” he told AFP.
Various truces have been announced since the latest round of fighting began, as elders from the two sides negotiate a lasting agreement.
In the meantime, the government has shut down key roads in and out of the district in an attempt to quell the violence, after a security convoy escorting residents was attacked in November, leaving more than 40 dead.
Mobile and Internet services are also disrupted in the area.
Members of the Shiite community are also particularly vulnerable as they must pass through Sunni-majority neighborhoods to reach essential services.
At least 133 people have been killed and 177 wounded in sporadic clashes since November 21.
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said 79 people had been killed in the region between July and October.
Police have regularly struggled to control violence in Kurram, which was part of the semi-autonomous Federally Administered Tribal Areas until it was merged with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in 2018. The feuding is generally rekindled by disputes over land in the rugged mountainous region, and fueled by underlying tensions between the communities adhering to different sects of Islam.
