Sifting through the rubble of latest Pakistan-India conflict
NEELUM VALLEY, Pakistan: Two weeks after Pakistan and India's most intense military clashes in decades, clearance teams along the border comb through fields for unexploded shells so residents can safely build back from the rubble of their homes.
Around 70 people, mostly Pakistanis, were killed in the four-day conflict that spread beyond divided Kashmir, over which the neighbors have fought three major wars.
The military confrontation — involving intense tit-for-tat drone, missile, aerial combat and artillery exchanges — came to an abrupt end after US President Donald Trump announced a surprise ceasefire, which is still holding.
On the Pakistan side of Kashmir, called Azad Kashmir, 500 buildings were damaged or destroyed, including nearly 50 in the picturesque Neelum Valley, where two people were killed.
'There is a possibility that there are unexploded shells still embedded in the ground,' said local official Muhammad Kamran, who has been helping clear educational institutions near the border.
Unexploded ordnance dating from conflicts past killed several children in 2021 and 2022 in Azad Kashmir.
Headmaster Muhammad Zubair follows a mine detector into a classroom of his high school in the valley where a writing on a whiteboard standing in the debris reads 'we are brave' in English.
'Although the fighting has stopped, people still hold so much fear and anxiety,' he told AFP.
'Despite calling them back to school, children are not showing up.'
Abdul Rasheed, a power department official, said he worked 'day and night' to repair power lines damaged by Indian firing.
Over the years, investment in roads has helped to create a modest tourism sector in the Neelum Valley, attracting Pakistanis who come to marvel at the Himalayan mountains.
Hotels reopened on Monday, but they remain deserted in the middle of peak season.
Alif Jan, 76, who has lived through multiple clashes between the two sides, is yet to call her grandchildren back to her border village after sending them away during the latest hostilities.
'It was a very difficult time. It was like doomsday had arrived,' she said.
The children were sent to Azad Kashmir's main city of Muzaffarabad, usually safe but this time targeted with an Indian air strike.
Jan wants to be certain the fighting doesn't resume and that she has enough to feed them before they eventually return.
In a schoolyard, she collects a 20-kilogram (45-pound) bag of flour, a can of oil, and some medicine from a local NGO.
Thousands of other families are still waiting to be relocated or compensated for damage.
'We have identified 5,000 families,' said Fawad Aslam, the program manager of local aid group.
'Our first priority is families who suffered direct damage, while the second priority is those who were forced to migrate — people who had to leave their homes and are now living in camps or temporary shelters.'
For 25-year-old Numan Butt whose brother was killed by shrapnel, the aid is little consolation.
'This conflict keeps coming upon us; this oppression is ongoing,' he told AFP.
'It is a good thing that they have agreed to peace, but the brother I have lost will never come back.'
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