As Pakistan pushes ahead with its onslaught against the advancing Taliban militia in the country's northwest, thousands of residents in the region have been left homeless. Already, according to the UN estimates, over 360,000 people have escaped from the three-worse affected areas of Dir, Swat and Buner. They add that a humanitarian crisis is imminent as Pakistan is facing its worst refugee crisis since the partition of the subcontinent in 1947.

Image: Internally displaced children, fleeing a military offensive in the Swat valley, sit next to their water bowls after arriving in the back of a truck to the UNHCR Jalala camp (United Nations High Commission for Refugees) in Takht Bai village in the North West Frontier Province's Mardan district, 150 km (85 miles) north west of Pakistan's capital Islamabad.