KARACHI, Jan 1: An alarming 30 per cent increase has been recorded in the runaway cases, pertaining to children fleeing homes, in the year 2002 as compared to the corresponding year, Edhi Foundation said on Wednesday.
In its annual performance report (2002) covering 300 Edhi welfare centres, 14 Edhi Homes, Cancer Hospital and Free Dispensaries all over the country, the Edhi Foundation said that a total of 3,471 children had either came or been brought by police and other sources to Edhi Child Home (ECH). Of them, it added, 3,120 were sent back to their homes whereas the rest remained at the ECH.
Similarly, 2,980 girls and married women, some of them carrying their children, landed at the Edhi Home during the year. They opted for the shelter at Edhi Home due to their domestic problems, the report said adding that they their stay at the Edhi Home varied but finally they expressed their willingness to reunite with their families and did so accordingly.
The report revealed that 1,680 disabled and mentally retarded people were admitted to the Edhi Village, on Super Highway, after being lifted from different areas by Edhi volunteers and 1,319 were handed over to their relatives. Likewise, it said, 1,441 such women were taken to to the Edhi’s North Karachi Centre and 1,290 of them were sent back to their homes.
The Foundation kept 1,725 corpses in its morgues at Moosa Lane and Sohrab Goth. They included victims of accidents, shooting, bomb blasts and also those having committed suicide. The bodies were either handed over to their heirs or buried at the Moach Goth graveyard as unclaimed.
The institution performed bath for 4,260 bodies at its different centres, 1,800 of them in Karachi.
The Edhi Foundation provided ambulance service at nominal rate to 223,200 people for their patients or dead as inter-cities transportation whereas another 471,240 such people benefited from the service within the city.
The free ambulance service handled 12,600 cases of shifting victims, wounded or killed, of accidents, shooting, blasts, etc. to different hospitals in Karachi besides providing the same service in 33,240 cases in the entire country.
The report noted a 25 per cent increase in suicides and fatal road accidents in the country during the year as compared to the statistics of the last five years.
The foundation provided free treatment to 463,144 patients in different parts of the country. At the Free Cancer Hospital on Tariq Road, Karachi, 926 patients were examined and provided treatment in the OPD and 300 were admitted to the hospital.
A total of 6,840 delivery cases were handled at the maternity homes at Mithadar and Moosa Lane where 300 nurses received a six-month preliminary training with a stipend of Rs1,000.
The Foundation also organized free feast popularly known as Edhi Free Langar in Karachi and Lahore whereas another 252,000 destitute were provided two-time free meals.
On the special directives of Abdul Sattar Edhi, founder of the Edhi Foundation, more than 3,000 children were provided primary education in different villages of the interior Sindh, including Moro, Dadu, Sehwan, Hala, Saeedabad, Naushero Feroze and Sanghar.
The Edhi Foundation also provided relief goods to the war-affected Afghan people. These goods included quilts, warm clothes, tents, medicines and food worth more than Rs65 million.
The foundation collected and sent 20 tons of rice, blankets, clothes and other goods as relief to the people of Somalia with the cooperation of the Pakistan Army deployed in that country as part of the UN peacekeeping force.