From 2004 the Pakistani army fought a series of campaigns against the Pakistani Taliban and allied groups in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and adjoining districts, each of which required or produced the evacuation of the civilian population. The largest single episode was the Malakand and Swat operation of spring 2009, when two to three million people left in a matter of weeks, most staying with host families rather than in camps; Operation Zarb-e-Azb in North Waziristan from June 2014 displaced about a million registered people to Bannu and beyond, with the district closed to civilians for years. Displacement was accompanied by curfews, the destruction of houses and bazaars in militant-held areas by both air strikes and militants, and by collective punishment provisions under the colonial-era Frontier Crimes Regulation. Returns were organised in phases from 2015 and mostly completed by 2018, when the tribal areas were merged into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the Frontier Crimes Regulation abolished; returnees found extensive destruction and, in some agencies, restrictions on movement. Independent access to the areas during operations was almost entirely closed, so casualty and damage assessments rest largely on official statements.
The Pakistani military conducted successive offensives against militant groups in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and Malakand, evacuating whole districts
The 1998 census counted 3.18 million in FATA and 4,262,700 in Malakand Division, a combined 7.44 million; by the 2017 census the same areas held about 5.0 million and 7.51 million respectively, some 12.5 million in all. The 2009 Swat and Bajaur operations alone displaced over two million people in a matter of weeks, one of the fastest mass displacements on record, and successive operations through 2014-16 in North and South Waziristan and Khyber displaced hundreds of thousands more.
No defensible range for civilian deaths caused by the operations themselves. Total conflict deaths in Pakistan from militancy and counter-militancy across 2003-2018 are usually put at 60,000-80,000 in Pakistani official and South Asia Terrorism Portal tallies, but these cover the whole country and include militants and security forces, and cannot be attributed to the displacement operations specifically.
Human Rights Watch and Pakistani human rights organisations documented house demolitions in cleared areas and detention without charge under the Actions (in Aid of Civil Power) Regulation.
Pakistan