60-year old Swat maid walked 32 hours to safety

thefrontierpost.com

PESHAWAR: Sixty-year old maid Zarsanga walked 32 hours to reach a safe place after she abandoned her native area extremely scared amid the Taliban reign of terror. Being single and orphan, Zarsanga was a maid at the house of a well-known doctor since her childhood. She migrated from Saidu Sharif to Mardan after the doctor along with his family left for America because of the alarming security situation. The story of Zarsanga, one of the hundreds of thousands of Swati people who left their homes in quest for peace, is a tale of misery and trauma. Zarsanga was among a large number of those non-registered displaced people who luckily found shelter with some well-off and kind hearted local people. They have remained unnoticed unlike those living at relief camps who had their stories projected by the media to the world. After covering a long journey on foot and with little or no food and water "I fell unconscious on the road in Mardan with swollen feet and high fever," Zarsanga told APP in an interview. "A good human being named Jamil took me home after I was able to tell him my story," she said. "I will probably find no one beside my grave when I leave this world," Zarsanga said with tears trickling down her wrinkled cheeks. Zarsanga said she was now living with the hope that peace would return to Swat one day and things would become normal again paving way for the return of the displaced people. "I love every nook and corner of Swat. I hope to return home someday. I have no children or relatives to miss me but I greatly miss the surroundings where I spent my entire life." Describing the ordeal of Swatis, she said that people became mentally sick due to the "insurgency and cruelties perpetrated on innocent and fear stricken people in the valley by the Taliban." "They have been through horrible time." She affectionately praised the man who has given her shelter "Kind hearted Jamil is looking after me like I am her real mother." Like Zarsanga, hundreds of women at the IDP camps yearn for peace in their native land enabling their dignified return. "We don't need anything from the government except honorable return to our places as soon as possible", Zarsanga said. She hoped that the military operation would lead to establishment of peace in the bleeding valley. "We are praying for the success of operation and an end to our agony."