Civilian lives on both sides of the Line of Control (LoC) are bearing the brunt as India-Pakistan descended into hostility, following India’s airstrikes on May 7 to avenge the Pahalgam terror attack, foreign news outlets reported on Friday.
Madasar Choudhary, 29, recounted an experience to Agence France-Presse (AFP) on behalf of his sister, who was too shaken to speak.
“She saw two children running out of her neighbour’s house and screamed for them to get back inside,” he said, narrating her experience from Poonch, Jammu and Kashmir. “But shrapnel got to the children – and they eventually died.”
At least 15 civilians, including children, were killed and 43 others injured in heavy cross-border shelling by the Pakistan Army in Poonch on Wednesday, said India.
In Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir and one of the targets of the Indian strikes, devastation was widespread.
Muhammad Riaz told AFP that his family had been rendered homeless. “We have no place to live. There is no space at our relatives’ house. We are very upset; we have nowhere to go.”
Among the wounded was the 15-year-old daughter of Safeer Ahmad Awan, a resident of Muzaffarabad. He described to CNN how she was hit by shrapnel after missiles targeted a mosque meters from their home on the night between May 6 and 7.
“As soon as the first missile struck, I ran outside, and my daughter followed me. That’s when the second missile hit, and a piece of shrapnel lodged in her chest. She spent two days in the hospital,” Awan said.
As military tensions rise, civilians have been forced to flee or take refuge in makeshift underground bunkers.
Nadeem Akbar, from Uri, located about 10 kilometers east of the LoC, told CNN that he left his home with some family members just minutes before fresh shelling began Thursday night. “My other family members who stayed back had to spend the night in an underground bunker in the village. There were 40 of them in that bunker. They had a tough time as the shelling continued the whole night.”
Video footage from the town shows destroyed homes and possessions reduced to rubble.
India launched ‘Operation Sindoor’ and described it as “focused, measured and non-escalatory” strikes, claiming to have destroyed nine “terrorist camps” across the LoC in Pakistan.
Pakistan escalated further by heavy artillery shelling, drone attacks, and relentless gunfire along the LoC, affecting communities and homes in Kashmir.
Reports indicate that at least 46 people have died due to the violence since Wednesday, including children.
According to Al Jazeera, Islamabad has claimed that 31 civilians were killed in Indian attacks, while New Delhi said 14 civilians and one soldier were killed in retaliatory Pakistani fire.
Deepika Pushkar Nath, a lawyer from Jammu, witnessed live fire while in her garden, on Thursday night.
“We are terrified. Does anyone take consent from us people before starting a war?” she asked. “We thought we would have met our end. It has sunk in that the war has really begun,” she told the CNN.
As both nuclear-armed nations intensify border aggression, the prospect of further escalation looms large — leaving Kashmir’s civilians trapped in a crossfire with no immediate end in sight.
