Up to 45,000 people have left their homes in a tribal district bordering Afghanistan, many fearing a military offensive against Taliban warlord Baitullah Mehsud, an official said Monday. Fighter jets were pounding Mehsud's strongholds in South Waziristan, where the military is preparing a full-scale offensive, while militants have stepped up resistance with rocket attacks on troops, officials said.
"The total figure for people who have moved out of South Waziristan is about 45,000," Colonel Waseem Ahmed, a spokesman for the Special Support Group for internally displaced persons, told AFP. He said most people had moved out of the region as part of winter's normal seasonal migration, to live in adjoining north-western districts, but had not gone back, fearing an offensive.
"The number of the recent migration is between 12,000 to 15,000," Ahmed said, adding that they were living with host families outside South Waziristan and that so far no camp had been set up for them. "We expect the number to rise to 60,000," he said. Around 2.5 million people have already fled the army's offensive against Taliban and al Qaeda militants, in one of the world's most pressing humanitarian crises.
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