KARACHI: Every Easter, Panzy Gulnaz Hanook, a 52-year-old nurse from Karachi, gives special blessings to her children before proceeding to church for morning prayer services.
But not this year.
Hanook is spending this Easter in a remote Balochistan town, serving some 685 km away from her native city, her friends and family. After giving her blessings to her children over the telephone, she proceeded to a field health unit outside Sui city for screening and testing suspected coronavirus patients.
In this undated photo, Panzy Gulnaz Hanook (left) poses with a doctor in a Karachi hospital where she was posted before moving to Balochistan (Photo Courtesy: Panzy Gulnaz Hanook)
“This is the first Easter in my 52 years that I am not with my family,” Hanook told Arab News via telephone and said she had said a special Easter prayer for humanity to be saved from the fatal disease ravaging the world.
The global coronavirus pandemic has so far killed over 110,000 people and affected 1.7 million, with figures rising by the hour. In Pakistan, 5,170 cases have been reported with 88 deaths as of Saturday.
This is not the first time Christians in Pakistan are celebrating Easter marred by darkness. In 2016, a bomb ripped through one of Lahore’s largest parks at the height of Easter day celebrations, killing at least 75 people and injuring over 300.
Tehmina Abdul (left) takes a selfie with a colleague in Karachi’s Sobhraj hospital on March 27, 2020 (Photo Courtesy: Tehmina Abdul)
Four years on, hundreds of Christian healthcare professionals around Pakistan are choosing to work on one of two biggest holidays of their religious calendar because of pressing responsibilities. Christians and Hindus are two of Pakistan’s largest minority groups, and are estimated to make up two percent of the country’s 210 million strong population.
Churches around the country remain closed as part of containment measures against Covid-19, with thousands joining in on online prayer services instead.
Tehmina Abdul (left) takes a selfie with a colleague in Karachi’s Sobhraj hospital on March 27, 2020 (Photo Courtesy: Tehmina Abdul)
Tehmina Abdul, a 50-year-old medical staffer at Karachi’s Sobhraj hospital, said she was happy to be with those offering medical services to sick people on an important day.
“I had never thought I would be working on Easter. But I am happy today that I am at the front lines,” she told Arab News.
According to official data, 111 healthcare professionals have been infected by Covid-19 in Pakistan, a number largely blamed on the lack of personal protective equipment for doctors, nurses and paramedics.
“We have arranged masks of our own but we will not give up,” Hanook said, and added she was praying the world would be free of the virus by the time Christmas rolled around.
