For three years now, there has been a war inside Karachi, Pakistan.
The city of 18 million people is overpopulated and divided in two main ethnic groups that relate to the two main political parties in Karachi.

The Urdu and Pashtu ethnic groups are involved in a never-ending struggle for dominance and political leadership of the city.
Karachi, the former political capital of the country, is still the commercial and financial capital of Pakistan. Whoever is in power in the city is a key ally for any political party that wants to prevail in general elections. For a long time now, the MQM party, whose main members belong to the Urdu-speaking ethnic group, has been the leader in the city. The main opposition party is the ANP party, which belongs to the Pashtun ethnic group.
 

The MQM accuses the ANP of calling Pashtuns from the border provinces to increase their numbers, grabbing government land and as a direct result of these two policies is also accused of dangerously increasing the already high overpopulation of the city.

The MQM, on the other hand, is accused by the ANP of producing false results in the elections and of being a terrorist organisation that maintains its power by systematically spreading violence.
These are the main political groups, but in this silent war, all sides are involved.
In 2010, the number of deaths this struggle for political domination of the city has produced is close to the numbers produced by any other more conventional war.

In August 2010, around 1,000 people have been killed in Karachi alone since the beginning of the year, and a series of top political killings in September has raised violence everywhere to a level rarely seen before.
Ordinary people are deeply scared and would like the army to intervene in the city to stop this massacre, and to feel safer to move around.

The reality is that no one, from the local to the national government, really seems to want to stop the violence.