By Laura Sheahen, Catholic Relief Services (CRS is a Caritas member from the USA) When floodwaters rose in his village in southern Pakistan, Muhammad Idrees spent the long, hot days floating. Sleeping on a raft built from tree branches, watching over his waterlogged house, Muhammad battled mosquitoes and snakes. His wheat crop was gone; so [...]
Entries Tagged as ‘Crisis in Pakistan’
June 17, 2009
Crisis in Pakistan: Filling the aid gaps
By Jos de Voogd, Caritas Communications Officer in Pakistan As part of the Caritas Internationalis response to the crisis in Pakistan, Caritas Ireland (Trocaire) started distributions of food and non-food items to displaced families 6 June. Because of the unexpected influx of 65.000 displaced people into new districts such as Mansehra and Haripur, Trocaire decided [...]
June 16, 2009
Crisis in Pakistan: Providing shelter
By Jos de Voogd, Caritas communications Officer It’s clear the CRS (a Caritas member in the USA) office in Mardan in Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province has just been opened. There is no furniture at all and staff members are sitting on the ground, concentrating away on their laptops.
June 15, 2009
Crisis in Pakistan: Door to door aid delivery
By Jos de Voogd, Caritas Communications Officer in Pakistan Caritas Switzerland is one of the operational partners of the Caritas Internationalis emergency appeal on Pakistan. It has started door-to-door distributions of food packages, kitchen and cooking equipment and hygiene items to the internally displaces persons (IDP’s) in Pakistan. At least 2.5 million people had to [...]
June 8, 2009
Crisis in Pakistan: Caritas Switzerland supporting 3,500 families with aid
By Jos de Voogd, Rawalpindi The food parcels really look good. We just left this warehouse were food parcels are being put together for Caritas Switzerland. I took pictures and talked to Mr Azhar Ali from ADF, the Turkish partner of Caritas organizing the distributions. ‘We only use quality brands’, Ali explains. Each partial contains [...]
June 5, 2009
Conflict in Pakistan: Security issues
By Jos de Voogd Caritas members are supporting more and more vulnerable people on the ground in Pakistan, but there are many difficulties to overcome. One of them is security. One Caritas member, for example, started distributing non-food items on Thursday in Mardan and are continuing to do so in coming days. But monitoring by [...]
June 2, 2009
Conflict in Pakistan: Fleeing with just the hair on our heads
By Jos de Voogd, Caritas Communications Officer in Pakistan Over the weekend, the Pakistan army declared victory in Mingaora, a city in the Swat Valley in the north west of the country. Mingaora normally has 300,000 residents, but now just 40.000 remain. If it does turn out to be a victory on the battlefield, what [...]
May 31, 2009
Conflict in Pakistan: First day in Swabi
By Jos de Voogd, Caritas Communications Officer It’s Saturday, the day after my arrival in Pakistan. Goal for today is Swabi, a district in North West Frontier Province (NWFP) situated directly south of the district of Swat, where most of the fighting between the Pakistan army and the Taliban is taking place. The districts of [...]
May 29, 2009
Conflict in Pakistan: First impressions
Jos de Voogd arrived in Pakistan on Friday 29 May. He will work there as a communications officer for Caritas. I arrived in Benazir Bhutto International airport at around 04.00 hours and the first thing that struck me of course was the temperature. At the moment it’s hot in Pakistan, at least in Islamabad. During [...]
