KARACHI: A gloomy Pakistan on Saturday bade farewell to its national hero Abdul Sattar Edhi, the founder of the country’s largest welfare organization who died Friday in Karachi aged 92.
Edhi, whose death was confirmed by his son Faisal, was revered for setting up maternity wards, morgues, orphanages, shelters and homes for the elderly, picking up where limited government-run services fell short.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif announced a state funeral and day of national mourning in honor of the man who owned just two sets of clothes, but whose work uplifting the nation’s destitute and orphans cemented his place in the hearts of Pakistan’s masses.
Edhi, known as a ‘servant of humanity’ and who also ran the world’s largest private ambulance network, was suffering from severe kidney problems according to his son.
Among those to attend the funeral was President Mamnoon Hussain, military chief General Raheel Sharif, governor of Sindh province Ishrat ul Ibad Khan, the chief ministers of Sindh and Punjab provinces and many other national politicians, notables and servicemen.
Edhi’s coffin, wrapped in the green national flag and covered with pink rose-petals, was carried on a military jeep into the national stadium in Karachi where there was a guard of honor as thousands paid tribute. Security officials said that a 21 gun salute was also offered.
Military Chief Raheel Sharif and Edhi’s son Faisal saluted the coffin as it was carried by soldiers.
But thousands of ordinary people who planned to attend the funeral were stopped several kilometers away from the ceremony for security reasons.
More than 3,000 security and traffic police officers were deployed as the coffin was taken for burial to Edhi Village near Karachi’s main National Highway, which Edhi himself had selected as a place for his grave 25 years ago.
Born to a family of Muslim traders in Gujarat in British India, Edhi arrived in Pakistan after its bloody creation in 1947.
The state’s failure to help his struggling family care for his mother — paralyzed and suffering from mental health issues — was his painful and decisive turning point toward philanthropy.
In the sticky streets in the heart of Karachi, Edhi, full of idealism and hope, opened his first medical clinic in 1951.
Abandoned children and the elderly, battered women, the disabled, drug addicts; Edhi’s foundation now houses some 5,700 people in 17 shelters across the country.
Nobel Peace Prize
The most prominent symbols of the foundation — its 1,500 ambulances — are deployed with unusual efficiency to the scene of extremist attacks that tear through Pakistan with devastating regularity.
The foundation’s adoption service sees unwanted children — many of them girls — left in cradles placed in front of every center, where they can be safely cared for.
Edhi has been nominated several times for the Nobel Peace Prize, and appears on the list again this year — put there by Malala Yousafzai, Pakistan’s teenage Nobel laureate.
Frail and weak in his later years, he appointed his son Faisal as managing trustee in early 2016.
Edhi leaves behind his wife Bilquis and six children.
He gave until the very end, his son told AFP, seeking to donate all his body organs after death — though doctors said that due to his age he could only donate his corneas.
Children would run after him, to hold his hand and for small talk whenever he would visit the Edhi village.
He would refrain from taking showers to save water.
“We have to conserve water for our future generations and that is why I don’t misuse this precious gift of nature,” he told AFP in an earlier conversation.
During his last days and as his condition worsened, he refused offers to get medical treatment from abroad.
The last time Pakistan held a state funeral was for military dictator General Zia ul-Haq in 1988.
Gloomy Pakistan bids farewell to national hero
Gloomy Pakistan bids farewell to national hero
Italian police fire tear gas as protesters clash near Winter Olympics hockey venue
- Police vans behind a temporary metal fence secured the road to the athletes’ village, but the protest veered away, continuing on a trajectory toward the Santagiulia venue
MILAN: Italian police fired tear gas and a water cannon at dozens of protesters who threw firecrackers and tried to access a highway near a Winter Olympics venue on Saturday.
The brief confrontation came at the end of a peaceful march by thousands against the environmental impact of the Games and the presence of US agents in Italy.
Police held off the violent demonstrators, who appeared to be trying to reach the Santagiulia Olympic ice hockey rink, after the skirmish. By then, the larger peaceful protest, including families with small children and students, had dispersed.
Earlier, a group of masked protesters had set off smoke bombs and firecrackers on a bridge overlooking a construction site about 800 meters (a half-mile) from the Olympic Village that’s housing around 1,500 athletes.
Police vans behind a temporary metal fence secured the road to the athletes’ village, but the protest veered away, continuing on a trajectory toward the Santagiulia venue. A heavy police presence guarded the entire route.
There was no indication that the protest and resulting road closure interfered with athletes’ transfers to their events, all on the outskirts of Milan.
The demonstration coincided with US Vice President JD Vance’s visit to Milan as head of the American delegation that attended the opening ceremony on Friday.
He and his family visited Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” closer to the city center, far from the protest, which also was against the deployment of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to provide security to the US delegation.
US Homeland Security Investigations, an ICE unit that focuses on cross-border crimes, frequently sends its officers to overseas events like the Olympics to assist with security. The ICE arm at the forefront of the immigration crackdown in the US is known as Enforcement and Removal Operations, and there is no indication its officers are being sent to Italy.
At the larger, peaceful demonstration, which police said numbered 10,000, people carried cardboard cutouts to represent trees felled to build the new bobsled run in Cortina. A group of dancers performed to beating drums. Music blasted from a truck leading the march, one a profanity-laced anti-ICE anthem.
“Let’s take back the cities and free the mountains,” read a banner by a group calling itself the Unsustainable Olympic Committee. Another group called the Association of Proletariat Excursionists organized the cutout trees.
“They bypassed the laws that usually are needed for major infrastructure project, citing urgency for the Games,” said protester Guido Maffioli, who expressed concern that the private entity organizing the Games would eventually pass on debt to Italian taxpayers.
Homemade signs read “Get out of the Games: Genocide States, Fascist Police and Polluting Sponsors,” the final one a reference to fossil fuel companies that are sponsors of the Games. One woman carried an artificial tree on her back decorated with the sign: “Infernal Olympics.”
The demonstration followed another last week when hundreds protested the deployment of ICE agents.
Like last week, demonstrators Saturday said they were opposed to ICE agents’ presence, despite official statements that a small number of agents from an investigative arm would be present in US diplomatic territory, and not operational on the streets.
