Claim: A video from January 2026 depicts a line of tents housing displaced people from the Tirah valley in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
Fact: The video is unrelated to the recent mass displacement of people from the Tirah valley. While the date of its origin is unclear, the clip is from Afghanistan.
On 14 January 2026, Facebook user ‘Zafar Cheema’ posted (archive) a video showing lines of tents housing displaced people, likely due to an emergency or natural disaster, with the following caption:
“1947 کی ہجرت کے قصے مت سناؤ، تیراہ میں یہ سب 2026 میں ہو رہا ہے لوگوں سے ان کے گھر چھین لیے گئے ہیں یہ درد وہی سمجھ سکتا ہے جو اس درد سے گزر رہا ہے
[Don’t tell stories about the migration of 1947; all this is happening in Tirah [valley] in 2026. People have been robbed of their homes. Only those who are going through this pain can understand this pain.]”
Tirah valley displacement
Since January 2026, “thousands” of people have been displaced from the Tirah valley, a region in the Khyber district of Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, due to what multiple news reports have claimed is a military operation targeting terrorists and militant groups.
Families that were promised assistance soldiered through the harsh weather conditions, including heavy snowfall that had blocked roads leading out of the area.
“The government says it aims to remove armed groups accused of destabilising the region. Many families have been forced to gather their belongings and leave their homes due to these operations,” Al Jazeera reported on 23 January.
A 25 January deadline was set for the evacuation, but the move was suspended and then extended to 5 February.
In a statement on 25 January, the Information and Broadcasting Ministry said that “misleading claims” were circulating about the “alleged ‘depopulation’ from the Tirah valley on the orders of the Army”. It added that neither the federal government nor the armed forces had issued any such directive.
“The Law Enforcement Agencies are routinely conducting targeted, intelligence-based operations strictly against terrorist elements, with full care to avoid disruption to peaceful civilian life for which no depopulation or migration is needed or being undertaken. It may be noted that the local population is increasingly concerned over [the] presence of Khwarij and desire peace and stability in Tirah,” the ministry said.
It added that the KP Relief, Rehabilitation, and Resettlement Department (RRSD) had “issued a notification for the release of funds on 26 Dec 2025 (reportedly Rs 4 Billion) for anticipated temporary and voluntary movement of population from certain localities of Tirah (Bagh)”.
The government uses the term “Fitna al-Khawarij” to refer to the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), also known as the Pakistani Taliban.
Authorities have, however, set up centres for the displaced individuals, with Bara Assistant Commissioner Talha Rafiq saying the registration of almost 9,000 families hailing from the Tirah valley was complete, according to a 25 January report by The Express Tribune.
As per another report, the Pakistan Army also conducted “relief activities to assist the local population and help restore daily life in the region”.
A representative jirga, or assembly of community elders, was held in Bara, Tribal News Network (TNN) reported on 26 January, adding that the body — chaired by former minister Hamidullah Jan Afridi — issued a unanimous declaration, urging “the government to fulfill its promise of the displaced returning from 1 April”.
On the other hand, KP Chief Minister Sohail Afridi’s Special Assistant for Information and Public Relations, Shafi Jan, criticised the federal government, saying its statement regarding the Tirah valley evacuation was “baseless, fabricated, contrary to facts and a nefarious attempt to mislead the people”.
Afridi himself also rejected the government’s stance of displacement being voluntary as “misleading and factually incorrect”, according to The Express Tribune.
In a press conference on 27 January 2026, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif ruled out the purported military operation in the Tirah valley. Addressing the media alongside Information Minister Attaullah Tarar and Prime Minister’s Coordinator on Information for KP Affairs, Ikhtiar Wali Khan, he termed the displacement of the region’s residents as “routine” seasonal migration, The Express Tribune reported.
The issue “which has been characterised as a crisis is actually no crisis”, he said, adding that the Pakistan Army “has abandoned operations in the favour of IBOs for a long time … There is no question of [an] operation there”.
According to a Dawn report, Asif “acknowledged the presence of around 400 to 500 members of the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in the valley” and said the issue was being “politicised”.
State Minister for Interior Tallal Chaudhry reiterated Asif’s remarks in a televised message, the state-run Radio Pakistan reported on 28 January, adding that if there was need for an operation, “all the stakeholders will be taken on board”.
So far, over 70,000 people have fled the region, The Associated Press (AP) reported on 28 January. “Authorities say many TTP leaders and fighters have found sanctuary in Afghanistan and that hundreds of them have crossed into Tirah, often using residents as human shields when militant hideouts are raided,” it added.
Fact or Fiction?
Soch Fact Check first observed that the logo on the tents is of the Afghan Red Crescent Society (ARCS), which can be seen here. There are two lines of text on it, which read as follows:
- Persian: “جمعیت هلال احمر افغانی [Afghan Red Crescent Society]”
- Pashto: “د افغاني سرې میاشتې ټولنې [Afghan Red Crescent Society]”
Reverse-searching keyframes from the viral video led us to the TikTok account @majeedafghan75, which posted (archive) it on 28 December 2025. A related clip (archive), posted on 30 December, also shows the same site, indicating that it is likely from Afghanistan.
A 6.0-magnitude earthquake hit Afghanistan at the end of August 2025, destroying thousands of homes “in a remote and hard-to-reach region which has limited medical infrastructure”, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). “More than half a million people” were impacted, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said.
On the other hand, according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), “more than one million Afghans have returned from Pakistan to Afghanistan in 2025”, bringing the total number repatriated, including from Iran, to “some 2.7 million” as of 29 November 2025.
It is possible that the tents show people affected by the earthquake or the Afghans forced to return from Pakistan and Iran.
However, while an exact date could not be ascertained, Soch Fact Check concludes that the video predates the Tirah valley displacement and, therefore, is unrelated.
Virality
Soch Fact Check found the claim circulating here, here, here, here, and here on Facebook, here, here, and here on Twitter, and here on TikTok.
It was also shared alongside Pashto-language captions here and here.
The same video was also shared by @burhan_uddin_0 (archive), an Afghan X user who consistently spreads false claims, and the Indian account @Nighat_Abbass (archive), with the caption: “The Pakistani military regime has taken people’s homes in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in the name of military operations, and ISIS camps have been set up there. Only those who go through this pain themselves can truly understand it.”
There’s no evidence that “ISIS camps” were set up in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa either.
Conclusion: The video is unrelated to the recent mass displacement of people from the Tirah valley. While the date of its origin is unclear, the clip is from Afghanistan.
Background image in cover photo: Marko Beljan
To appeal against our fact-check, please send an email to appeals@sochfactcheck.com