Islamabad, August 19 (IANS): A state funeral was held in Karachi on Saturday for Ruth Pfau, a German doctor and nun who dedicated her life to eradicating leprosy in Pakistan and earned international acclaim as the country’s “Mother Teresa”.
Pfau passed away earlier this month at the age of 87 in Karachi. She had dedicated more than 50 years of her life to fighting leprosy in Pakistan, which earned her the name “Light to the Lepers”.
She was the founder of the National Leprosy Control Programme in Pakistan and Marie Adelaide Leprosy Centre (MALC), the News International reported.
She was laid to rest after a funeral service at St Patrick’s Cathedral in Karachi, where the coffin was draped in the Pakistani flag and covered with rose petals. A gun-salute was also offered during the funeral proceedings.
Pfau was later buried in Gora Qabristan, Karachi’s oldest graveyard.
President Mamnoon Hussain, Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah, Governor Muhammad Zubair, Chief of Army Staff Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa, Air Chief Marshal Sohail Aman and Deputy Chief of Naval Staff (Operations) Vice Admiral Zafar Mahmood Abbasi attended the funeral ceremony. Several officials from the German Consulate in Karachi were also present.
The Sindh Chief Minister ordered the renaming of Karachi’s Civil Hospital after Pfau following the funeral. “Dr Pfau was a symbol of pride for this province and for all of Pakistan,” he said.
Pfau studied medicine in Germany in the 1950s and was later sent to India by her order, the Daughters of the Heart of Mary. But a visa problem kept her in Karachi, where she went on to live for 57 years.
Due to her efforts, Pakistan became one of the first countries in Asia to be declared free of leprosy in 1966. She set up 150 clinics across the country which treated tens of thousands of people.
In recognition of her work, the Pakistani government awarded Pfau the nation’s second highest civilian honour, Hilal-i-Imtiaz, in 1979.
In 1989, she was presented with the Hilal-i-Pakistan, the country’s highest civilian honour.
