Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Islamabad (Fides Service)- For almost two months Salesian Fathers and volunteers have been working to assemble and equip tent camps for earthquake victims in Pakistan: Abbodabad camp 180 tents has been completed and work on Duma Jabra camp 200 tents has started.
Abbodabad camp was handed over to local personnel two weeks ago by Fr Miguel Angel Ruiz, Fr Peter Zago, 70 students and a few teachers from Yuhannabad Salesian Technical School in a Lahore and three voluntary women nurses, two from Spain, one from Italy who teach at nursing schools Lahore and Islamabad. The complex task included organising groups, contacting authorities, at times rebuilding relations with local communities besides giving emergency medical aid to many wounded and sick people. Abbodabad camp, which lies not far from Yahub Learning Hospital, has many earthquake victims who were taken from their villages by helicopter to the hospital for treatment and then discharged to the camp in the care of the camp team of doctors and nurses.
This is not a refugee camp, it is a place where people are made welcome and given physical and psychological assistance. The local people are full of appreciation and gratitude for the work of the three nurse, the students and teachers who built these infrastructures to make life in the camps less difficult, and prepare three meals a day, distribute water and fruit juice and keep the camp tidy.
“The most positive note - said Rev. Zago of Quetta Salesian Centre - has been to see our Christian minority flanked by hundreds of Muslims in the work of building these structures. Local Muslims were full of admiration for our nurses and students who worked for two weeks often in the rain to put up tents, cook food, distribute blankets, move sick and wounded people. And in two weeks we completed the camps and handed them to local personnel civil engineer Sahir and doctor Passim. In these days of hard work we were accompanied and encouraged by our founder Don Bosco in heaven.”
Some days ago 20 teachers and a few students from Yuhannabad Technical School in Lahore led by Fr Don Miguel Angel Ruiz set out with a bus, a jeep and two trucks of material to build a camp of 200 tends for earthquake victims at Duma Jabra, a few km north of Balakot. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides 24/11/2005 righe 37 parole 493)
