Make a wish: Edhi Centre reunites six missing children with families in K-P

A total 28 children recovered from Karachi will be reunited during Ramazan.

PESHAWAR:

Six children missing from various parts of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa were brought back to Peshawar by the Edhi Foundation and reunited with their families on Saturday.

An official of the foundation told The Express Tribune the children were brought from Karachi in a private bus to the Balqees Edhi Home in Hayatabad from where they were shifted to their homes in Edhi vans.

The children were identified as nine-year-old Kamran and 10-year-old Naveed from Peshawar, 14-year-old Shan from Charsadda, 11-year-old Imran from Swabi, 12-year-old Zohaibullah from Jahangira and 12-year-old Shoaib from Dera Ismail Khan.

Naveed’s father Khan Muhammad told The Express Tribune his son had been missing for the past eight months, “My son went out of the house but he never returned. I don’t know how he reached Karachi,” said the father.

On the other hand, fourteen-year-old Shan said he left home at will. However, he was quick to regret his decision as he missed his siblings. He expressed gratitude to the Edhi Foundation for reuniting him with his family.

Sarfaraz Khan, the father of Imran, 11, said he was at work when he received a call informing him of his son’s return. “Imran was six years old when we lost him. I searched for him everywhere but could not find him. His younger brothers always asked where Imran was and I had no answer for them,” shared Sarfaraz.

The K-P Edhi Centre chief Sher Gul said the centre in Karachi had found these children over the last one year and facilitated their return home. “It is a gift – from the Edhi Foundation to the families.”

“Uniting scattered families was our drive for the month of Ramazan,” said Gul. The charitable organisation will be reuniting 28 children with their families across Pakistan in the month of fasting.

The bus chartered specifically to take these children to their respective homes left Karachi on July 12 for different parts of the country. It is now en route to Balochistan.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 21^st, 2013.