A tragic death

Birgitta Almeby — or Sister Bargeeta, as she was widely known in the country where she had lived and worked for over 38 years — is dead. The 71-year-old Swedish charity worker died in a hospital in Stockholm on December 12, where she had been flown just a day earlier. Her death came as a result of a bullet wound to her neck, suffered near her home in Lahore as she returned from work on December 3. The assailants remain free and there appears to have been little progress in tracking them down or gaining any insight into their possible motives.

We can assume, however, that Sister Bargeeta was shot because she was a Westerner; she was also a Christian, working for a church-based charity. This goes to demonstrate the extent to which we have collapsed as a civilised society. Others working for the betterment of people in the country have been killed before in a similar fashion. They include the Muslim Red Cross worker from the UK who was kidnapped and then murdered in Quetta and a World Health Organisation doctor administering polio drops who was shot dead in Karachi. The fear is that Birgitta will not be the last to die. The extremism and hatred that claimed her life could take that of others as well.

The orphans Birgitta cared for in Youhanabad have lost someone who cared for them and so have those strained at a vocational institute in Kot Lakhpat. The killing is yet another blow to the Christian community in the country that saw Sister Bargeeta as a role model. It is a pity she died in a land she had served for so long and with such selflessness. Her murder will mean fewer individuals will be ready to do what she did to uplift the most deprived people in a country where millions are in need of help. We need to act in order to stop the wave of madness which is claiming lives in this fashion and consequently depriving people of the care they need.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 15^th, 2012.