6th report (Emergency Shelter)

Sixth Emergency Relief report from Kashmir

SOS Children continues to provide emergency relief to people affected by the devastating earthquake in Pakistan-administered Kashmir. The SOS Search and Rescue team returned to Muzaffarabad today to collect further vulnerable children and bring them to the organisation's emergency shelter in Rawalpindi.

The team is currently looking for unaccompanied children in all of the camps and field hospitals in and around Muzaffarabad, as well as at the helipad. Every day between 3-4.30pm local time, helicopters carrying children who need to be airlifted out of the region leave the helipad in Muzaffarabad for the Chaklala airbase in Rawalpindi. The team then takes any unaccompanied children to the Institute of Medical Sciences Hospital in Islamabad, where they receive medical treatment. An SOS Children co-worker remains with each child at all times, and once discharged from hospital brings the child to the SOS Emergency Shelter in Rawalpindi.

Mrs Souriya Anwar, President of SOS Children's Villages of Pakistan, said it was still difficult to make long-term plans since it is still not known how many children have been orphaned or will be in need of the organisation's care. Some of the children at the SOS Emergency Shelter in Rawalpindi are currently being moved into the neighbouring children's village, in order to make room for the many children who are expected to arrive within the coming days.

Case Studies

We have started to add case studies of some of the children we have helped. These are real children with lives ahead of them (now) so in line with our child privacy policy we have used real photos but changed the children's names. The case studies will be updated as we progress with tracing families and helping children recover.