hen heavy snowfall in the upper reaches of Swat arrived this winter, Fazl Rahman knew the signs. Within hours, the narrow mountain road connecting his village with the rest of the valley had disappeared under thick layers of snow. Electricity supply failed soon after. The mobile phone signal weakened. By the second day, food supplies were running low.

By the third day, his family had decided to leave.

“We don’t wait for things to collapse completely,” Rahman said, preparing to move his wife and children to Mingora. “Once the road closes, there is no help.”

Each winter, heavy snowfall forces thousands of people from upper Swat to temporarily abandon their homes and relocate to lower districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. In some cases they move to other parts of the country. This movement is rarely recognised as displacement. It remains largely undocumented, unattended and absent from official disaster response frameworks.

Displacement without a name

Snowfall has long been a part of life in Swat’s mountainous areas. What has changed, residents say, is its intensity and unpredictability. Sudden and heavy snow spells increasingly block roads for weeks, cut off access to health facilities, disrupt fuel and electricity supply and isolate entire communities.

Local officials often describe this movement as seasonal migration. For affected families, the distinction matters.

“When people are forced to leave because they cannot survive the conditions, it is displacement,” said Shahzad, a community elder from upper Swat. “Calling it routine makes it invisible.”

Most families do not move into camps. Instead, they rely on relatives, informal rentals or overcrowded housing in towns like Mingora and other parts of the country. Because they disperse quietly, their displacement goes uncounted.

Climate variability and winter risk

Climate experts caution against linking individual snowfall events directly to climate change. However, they point to growing climate variability in mountain regions, where winters are becoming less predictable and extreme events more frequent.

According to officials from the Pakistan Meteorological Department, snowfall patterns in Swat over the past decade show increasing variability, with intense snowfall occurring over shorter periods. These sudden events overwhelm local coping mechanisms, particularly in remote villages with weak infrastructure.

“Climate change does not only mean heat,” said Shehryar Khan, a climate expert familiar with Swat’s geography. “In mountain regions, it can also mean more intense cold and heavier snowfall that increase displacement risk when preparedness is low.”

Outside response

systems

Despite the scale of winter displacement, there is no formal mechanism to track or support snow-displaced populations in Swat. Disaster response systems are largely designed around floods, leaving winter hazards under-addressed.

Heavy snowfall in Swat has become a driver of recurring, unacknowledged displacement. It remains beyond official data, outside policy debates and largely escapes public attention.

There are no winter-specific displacement figures, no planned shelters for snow emergencies and no relocation strategy for communities repeatedly cut off during winter months.

Once the snow melts, families return to their villages to repair roofs, clear paths and prepare for the next season—often using borrowed money.

Women and children face particular challenges. Temporary displacement disrupts schooling, increases care burdens and limits access to maternal and child healthcare. Livelihoods suffer as well, especially for households dependent on livestock, tourism or daily wage labour.

“When we move, income stops,” said a displaced labourer. “When we return, rebuilding starts from scratch.”

Preparedness gaps

District administration officials acknowledge the difficulty of winter response in remote terrain, citing limited resources and access constraints. Snow clearance machinery is scarce and early warning systems often fail to reach remote communities in time.

Critics argue that the problem is not only logistical but also spolitical. Winter displacement is largely absent from provincial climate adaptation and disaster management planning, despite its recurring impact.

“Floods are visible. Snow displacement is quiet,” said a local rights activist Hasnain Khan. “Because it doesn’t look like an emergency, it is treated as normal life in the mountains.”

This framing has consequences. Without recognition, there is no policy urgency—no investment in winterised infrastructure, no livelihood protection and no long-term relocation planning for the most vulnerable settlements.

Experts cited by TheDisplacement.com emphasise that disaster policies in Pakistan must differentiate between migration and displacement to ensure that communities forced to leave their homes due to climate shocks are legally recognised and supported. The policy brief also srecommends institutionalising climate displacement data collection through the Provincial Disaster Management Authority and linking this data with targeted social safety net programmes, such as cash assistance, winterisation support and livelihood protection.

No resolution

As spring approaches, displaced families return to upper Swat—not because risks have disappeared, but because they have no alternative. The cycle goes: wait, endure, leave, return.

“This is not a one-time crisis,” Fazl Rahman said. “It happens every winter.”

In Swat, heavy snowfall has become a driver of recurring, unacknowledged displacement. It remains beyond official data, outside policy debates and largely escapes public attention. Until winter displacement is formally recognised as a climate and governance issue, families will continue to move not by choice, but by necessity.

The writer is a freelance journalist from Swat and a PhD scholar in media and mass communication. He can be reached [email protected]