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More than 455,000 people have been displaced since the start of Pakistan's military offensive against Taliban militants in the north of the country over a week ago and the number continues to rise, a UN spokesperson said on Tuesday.
The figure was released by the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), which warned that 74 percent of the displaced from Pakistan's North Waziristan are women and children, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said at a daily news briefing here.
Those displaced urgently need food, shelter, health, water, sanitation and hygiene, and protection, Dujarric said.
This would bring the total number of displaced people from the tribal regions of the country to 1.5 million, including 930,000 uprooted in various waves since 2009, according to UN figures.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said that most of the families have sought refuge in different parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, with reports of families also now arriving in Punjab and Balochistan. Almost all the internally displaced people are being hosted by local communities.
The Pakistani government is providing displaced people with cash grants as they register, and has provided the World Food Programme (WFP) with 25,000 metric tons of wheat to support the displaced families, Dujarric said.
The World Health Organization (WHO) reported that nearly 150, 000 people have received polio drops on their way out of North Waziristan, Dujarric added.
