Pakistan: battling floods and the Taliban

Less than 18 months after the Pakistani army violently expelled the Taliban from the northern Swat valley, destruction wrought by the monsoon floods has reversed many gains made since – particularly in girls’ education.

Twenty-two schools were completely destroyed by the floods. Travelling high into Upper Swat, we passed the sites of many schools that had been completely washed away by the surging floodwaters which crashed through the valley carving a huge scar and accounting for most of the 1,800 killed across Pakistan.

The town of Madyan was badly hit. Raging torrents of water hit the town centre at the end of July, demolishing schools, markets and more than 300 houses. The road to Madyan had only been reopened two days earlier by army engineers and had previously only been accessible by foot or by helicopter.

Click here – After the flood: Jonathan Miller’s photographs from Pakistan’s Swat valley

Many of the girls’ schools destroyed by the flood had only recently started up again. The Taliban had blown up 275 schools throughout the valley – most of them girls’ schools. In Swat, the male literacy rate is 42 per cent and female less than 13 per cent, according to the Pakistan government census. There are concerns that that may now be further dented.

The Taliban had blown up 275 schools throughout the valley – most of them girls’ schools.

The UN children’s fund, Unicef, says that across Pakistan, the floods have forced 1.6 million children out of the classroom. Nearly nine million under-18s have been affected by the floods and had their education disrupted.

In total, 7,820 schools have been completely destroyed throughout the country and Save the Children reports that more than 5,000 surviving schools are being used as flood relief centres to house displaced people.

Our crew travelled northeast from Madyan along a precipitous winding road, following a tributary of the Swat River, to the village of Badali. Sher Afzal Khan, headteacher of the local school, for 750 children – 400 of them girls – trekked with us down to the valley floor, to the site of his former school.

The village had been badly hit by the flood, which had completely destroyed 62 houses, although amazingly, no-one had been killed. The spot where the two schools had stood was nothing but a pile of boulders, fifty metres in from the highest point the floodwaters had reached. Those whose houses had been washed away were now living in tents provided by the British charity Shelterbox.

Mr Khan said the Taliban had blown up both the boys’ and the girls’ schools in November 2008. “We were later able to resume classes in the rubble,” he told me. “But now the flood water has completely destroyed them. These children’s future is at stake,” he said, beckoning to at least a hundred of his now school-less pupils who had gathered around us.

They want to stop girls going to school. They want to end education for girls. Our school was closed for months after they blew it up. It was very frightening. Sumera, aged eight

“There is now no school in this village. The nearest is high in the mountains and is too far for the children. But there is nowhere for us to complain or to get help. These are dark days for these children. It is a terrible time and we are asking for help.”

A group of primary school girls aged between eight and 11 all said they wanted to be doctors or teachers when they grew up. They said they missed their school badly and that they now just hung around during the day helping their mothers.

Asked why the Taliban had blown up their school, Sumera, aged eight, said: “They want to stop girls going to school. They want to end education for girls. Our school was closed for months after they blew it up. It was very frightening.”

Blog: a rethink on whether to talk to the Taliban?

Half-an-hour’s drive up the Swat River from the district capital of Mingora, the local jirga council, known as the National Defence Commitee (NDC) in flood-hit Bara Bandai town, had taken matters into their own hands. We were escorted by a pick-up-full of their well-armed members to the site of their local girls’ school, for 1,200 children, which had also been blown up by the Taliban.

The bombing of girls’ schools has again escalated in the weeks since the flood, with several being targeted across northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, including in Swat.

The head of the jirga, Muhammad Idress Khan, had invited local Taliban leaders – who had fled into the nearby hills from their nearby stronghold – to explain to the jirga why they continued to bomb girls’ schools.

Every room in the former Taliban commander’s house was crammed full of girls, aged five to 11 – there were more than 100 having lessons on the roof.

When they failed to show up for the meeting, Mr Khan proposed that the NDC sequester the property of the head of the Bara Bandai Taliban, Commander Balil, and turn it into a girls’ school. The NDC functions as a government-sponsored neighbourhood paramilitary force. Mr Khan related this story with great relish and said his proposal had immediately been approved by the jirga and the local Pakistan army commander.

The school has now officially opened, to the irritation of the next-door neighbours – all of them relatives of Commander Balil – who complained that they felt humiliated by the decision.

Channel 4 News returned to Bara Bandai Girls’ School to find 812 girls in attendance. Every room in the former Taliban commander’s house was crammed full of girls, aged five to 11 – there were more than 100 having lessons on the roof. The school had only eight teachers.

Ms Bakht Iqbal, the headteacher, who wore a black burqa, said she was delighted to have her school back. “The girls are so excited to be able to come back to school,” she told me. “They used to come round to my home and ask me all the time when it would open again. We have many very intelligent students here and they are very keen to learn.”

Why this disaster just keeps on spreading
I had covered the tsunami and the Kashmir quake for Channel 4 News and as a correspondent, both events were apocalyptic tragedies to report. I have a deep dislike of the idea of comparing natural disasters as though to rank one as "worse" than another. When you witness at first hand the human misery unleashed by these Acts of God, such comparisons seem crass and devoid of compassion.

But as I travelled through Pakistan, from the storm-lashed remote northern valleys of Swat to the vast inland sea that the Indus River had become in the south - through the malarial swamps where rural villages had once stood in between - the point of the UN's comparison became startlingly clear to me.

Read more from Jonathan Miller: Pakistan floods: special report

Ms Iqbal said however that the commander’s house was not a permanent solution to their lack of a proper school and that they needed a new building, although she held out little hope of the government building one in the near future. The government of Pakistan spends less than 1.5 per cent of GDP on education and health and the flood castastrophe has placed a huge strain on the national budget.

Ms Iqbal also said: “We are concerned too for the security of the teachers and students. We trust the National Defence Committee to prove security, but everyone in this area is still frightened. Anything can happen at any time.”

We are concerned too for the security of the teachers and students. Bakht Iqbal, teacher

There is a sense in Swat that the Taliban are never far away and are only being held at bay by the Pakistani army’s huge presence. The Islamists are widely feared and despised among those we met. Memories of their barbarous rule are still raw, when the headless bodies of those they executed were dumped on the main square in Mingora.

The people of Swat have shown great defiance towards the Taliban in the past and the determination to improve girls’ education has become a symbol of that defiance.