Attacks against aid workers increase: report

Departing head of ICRC says violence has also spread to urban areas.

GENEVA:

Aid workers have seen a marked spike in casualties and injuries in Pakistan, fueled by intensifying violence and anti-western suspicions in the wake of the May 2 US raid that killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, a senior Red Cross official said Monday.

Pascal Cuttat, the departing head of the International Committee of the Red Cross delegation in Pakistan, said that violence has also spread into urban areas such as Peshawar and Karachi, resulting in noticeably more people killed and injured.

“Overall, the curve of violence is increasing, and the time-link is clear,” he said.

Bin Laden was killed in a unilateral raid by US Navy Seals at his secret compound in Abbottabad. Since then, Cuttat said, it’s gotten tougher for aid groups to operate in Pakistan — the bureaucratic hoops against getting permits and visas have multiplied — due to a marked jump in violence and anti-Western sentiment.  Pakistan’s lawmakers criticised the raid and demanded that the operation not be repeated

Cuttat, at the end of a three-year stint in Pakistan, said that aid workers are “struggling but not impeded” as they try to help flood victims and armed insurgencies, adding that the effects of last year’s floods are not digested entirely yet”.

“We can only move through Pakistan in certain areas,” he said. Cuttat also said he regretted his staff was unable to get better access to prisoners and detainees in Pakistan.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 12^th, 2011.