Sept 27, 2024
By Rehan Piracha
LAHORE:
The death toll of weeklong clashes between tribes in Kurram district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa reached 39 with at least 107 others wounded, hospital officials confirmed on Friday.
The tribal district bordering Afghanistan has been a scene of internecine clashes between Shia majority and Sunni minority tribes over decades. The latest in the long line of conflicts started after the Boshehra tribes of upper Kurram began to set up bunkers on the lands of the Ahmadzai tribes. The dispute quickly spread to other areas of the tribal district in KP.
According to Dr Mir Hassan Jan, medical superintendent of DHQ Hospital in Parachinar, at least 200 casualties were reported to hospitals from the district’s three regions of upper Kurram, central Kurram, and lower Kurram. While talking on phone from Parachinar with Voicepk.net, he said, “The DHQ Hospital in Parachinar received 23 bodies and treated 47 wounded people since the fighting began a eight days ago.”
He added that the victims brought to his hospital belonged mostly to areas in upper Kurram.
On the other side, Dr Rahim Gul, medical superintendent of Sadda Tehsil Headquarter Hospital in lower Kurram, said his hospital has received 16 dead bodies and has treated 70 wounded since the clashes began last week.
He further informed that out of the total wounded patients, 10 critical patients from Sadda THQ Hospital and three patients from the DHQ Hospital in Parachinar were referred to tertiary care hospitals in Peshawar.
According to Dr Gul, the impact of weeklong clashes was more intense than that of the tribal strife in August that claimed lives of 41 people and injured 200 over a land dispute in Kurram district. “We are seeing more women and children being hit with mortars and rockets,” he said.
The warring tribes are targeting innocent civilian populations on both sides with heavy weapons, “at least four pregnant women and an equal number of children were among the casualties reported to Sadda Tehsil Headquarters Hospital,” said the hospital official.
The situation in Parachinar, the district’s capital, remains tense. The Peshawar-Parachinar highway has been blocked for eight days. The educational institutions remain closed since the fighting began on September 19. The road blockade has cut off the supply of edible items and medicines to Parachinar, Sadda, and Baggan. “Once the main highway is blocked we witness shortages relating to edible items and medicines,” Dr Jan said. However, he added, the short supply had not affected the treatment of wounded people from the tribal clashes coming to the hospital in Parachinar.
Rival tribesmen agree to truce, claims government
Meanwhile, Barrister Muhammad Ali Saif, Special Assistant for Information to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister, claimed that a ceasefire was brokered between the rival tribes in Kurram with the efforts of the administration, police, and local elders. In a statement issued on September 27, Saif said the clashes were the result of a land dispute and should not be linked to terrorism or sectarianism.
On the direction of KP CM, practical steps were being taken for a lasting solution to the internecine tribal clashes in Kurrum, he added.
However, there was no independent confirmation that the tribes had agreed to a ceasefire as announced by the provincial government’s information advisor.