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
Storms spark travel mayhem and power cuts in northern Europe
- Some 50 flights were canceled in London’s Heathrow airport, affecting thousands of passengers
- In France, Goretti cut power to some 380,000 homes, most of them in the northern Normandy region
CHERBOURG, France: Gale-force winds and storms barrelled through northern Europe on Friday, disrupting air and rail travel and cutting power to hundreds of thousands in freezing temperatures.
Some 50 flights were canceled in London’s Heathrow airport, affecting thousands of passengers, with air travel disrupted across Europe from the Czech Republic to Moscow.
Forecasters from Britain to Germany urged people to stay indoors as they issued weather warnings, including the rare, highest-level red wind alert for the British Isles of Scilly and Cornwall in southwestern England.
All trains were canceled in Cornwall on Friday.
Some 57,000 homes in the UK remained without electricity, according to the National Grid energy provider, after Storm Goretti brought strong winds and heavy snow to parts of the country overnight.
More than 250 schools remained closed across Scotland, which has struggled through bad weather for much of the first week back after the Christmas break.
In France, Goretti cut power to some 380,000 homes, most of them in the northern Normandy region, the Enedis power provider said.
Overnight, gusts of up to 216 kilometers per hour (134 miles per hour) were registered in France’s northwestern Manche region, authorities said.
The winds felled trees with at least one crashing on residential buildings in France’s Seine-Maritime region, without injuries, authorities said.
Gusts of up to 160 kph lashed England and Wales with the Met Office forecasting agency warning of “very large waves” bringing “dangerous conditions to coastal areas.”
It also issued an amber snow warning in Wales, central England and parts of northern England, predicting snow of up to 30 centimeters (11 inches) in some areas.
More than 10 people have died in weather-related accidents this week across Europe.
The latest deaths were reported by Turkish media, where five people were killed.
While two were killed in separate accidents involving dislodged roof tiles, a Syrian man died when a wall fell on him, a construction worker was swept into the Aegean Sea and a pensioner fell off a roof.
- Schools out -
Schools remained shut in parts of northern France, where weather alerts have been issued in 30 other regions.
Giant waves crashed over harbor walls across France’s far northwest overnight, and as the storm moved eastwards it brought flooding and forced the closure of roads and ports including Dieppe.
Northern Germany faced severe disruption from heavy snow and high winds brought by Storm Elli, with schools ordered closed in the cities of Hamburg and Bremen and long-distance rail services canceled.
Some 600 schools were closed in Moldova until next Monday and around 1,000 homes were without electricity in Romania.
Floodwaters were meanwhile receding in parts of the Balkans on Friday after heavy snowfall and torrential downpours earlier in the week triggered hundreds of evacuations across several countries and killed at least two people.
In Albania, one of the hardest-hit in the region, Prime Minister Edi Rama said authorities were beginning to count the cost of flooding after hundreds of homes were inundated primarily in the south.
But weather warnings for icy conditions and snowfall remained in effect across most of the region, including Serbia, where parts of the west have been without power for days after a snowstorm knocked out power lines.
