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| October 24, 2005 | Monday | Ramzan 19, 1426 |
Parents search for missing children
ISLAMABAD, Oct 23: Child victims of the earthquake lying in the hospitals of the twin cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi are a sad sight but distressed parents looking for their missing children among them present no less a painful sight.
Scores of distraught and desperate parents visit the hospitals every day in the hope of finding their lost child there but with no luck.
Women and children were reportedly the worst sufferers in the earthquake which killed thousands and devastated the lives of the millions who survived it.
A large number of children went missing in the aftermath of the killer quake and some of them might be undergoing treatment in hospitals far away from their homes. Hospital sources said parents approach them daily about their missing children.
“Where is my Farjad? No one tells me about his whereabouts. I don’t believe he is buried under the rubble of our house. He is admitted in a hospital somewhere,” insisted Jamal Nasir from Balakot who came to Islamabad’s Polyclinic hospital looking for his six year-old-son.
The poor father had visited different hospitals in the twin cities already and not finding his son in Polyclinic too broke him down. “I can’t go on (searching) any longer. I’m tired,” he said.
Mr Nasir said the quake had knocked him down unconscious and injured him. He thought Farjad had been rescued and evacuated to Islamabad for treatment and was happy for that. “But now I think it was my wishful thinking.”
Like him other parents too were seen arguing with the staff of the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) demanding the list of patients in the hope to find their children’s names there.
However, a staff told Dawn that the children in the hospital had their parents with them. A few days ago they received some unattended infants but they have been handed over to their parents since.
Prof Zaheer Abbasi, in-charge children ward, Pims, said 12 children were still there in the hospital who were not accompanied by their guardians and the hospital administration was looking for their parents. “We are much careful about the infants and would hand over them only after ascertaining their guardians identity.”
What the distraught parents interviewed by Dawn feared most was that their missing children might not fall prey to human traffickers.
Meanwhile, an official of the International Labour Organization (ILO) has alleged that in the absence of a foolproof system the missing children smuggling could not be ruled out.
The official said after the Tsunami disaster hundreds of children had been smuggled out of Sri Lanka and Indonesia.
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