Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Islamabad (Fides Service) - “Our volunteers are on the spot to assess needs and make sure help goes where it is most needed. There is a lot to do the disaster has affected the lives of millions of people. Rescue work and assistance is difficult with roads and electricity and telephone cut. Low temperatures are causing respiratory illnesses among people living in the open in makeshift shelters. With aid from national Caritas offices all over the world Caritas Pakistan is distributing food, medicines, blankets and tents”: this was reported excitedly by executive secretary Caritas Pakistan lay Catholic woman Anila Gill in the capital Islamabad co-ordinating aid to earthquake victims in Kashmir.
Caritas volunteers, working with Catholic Relief Service (Caritas USA) operative in Pakistan for over fifty years, have already distributed 700 tents and 4,200 blankets Caritas. In fact humanitarian organisations already in the country, familiar with the language, people and territory, find it easier to provide immediate aid.
Anila Gill continued: “What we must do now as government aid starts arriving is to make sure aid goes where it is needed and not to the same place. It is amazing to see how much aid is coming from Pakistani Catholics all over the country not to mention the solidarity from Caritas Germany, Switzerland, Austria, France, Australia, Italy, Spain etc. On behalf of the people of Kashmir who have lost family and homes I would like to thank the Catholics of the world”.
As in other Muslim countries Caritas Pakistan is the charity arm of a minority group: the population is 140 million and Christians of various denominations are less than 2 million. Caritas Pakistan also runs programmes of micro-credit and ‘social harmony’ to foster good relations among different religious and ethnic communities. The expression of a small Church but active and courageous always ready to help in an emergency. (PA) (Agenzia Fides 12/10/2005 righe 28 parole 287)
