Celebrated Pakistani Philanthropist Abdul Sattar Edhi Passes Away In Karachi

Celebrated humanitarian and Edhi Foundation Chairman Abdul Sattar Edhi passed away at the age of 92 in Karachi on Friday night, it has been learnt.

 

Edhi was diagnosed with kidney failure in 2013 but had been unable to get a transplant due to frail health. He was receiving treatment at the Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation (SIUT).

 

Earlier in the day, the philanthropist's son Faisal Edhi and wife Bilquis Edhi informed the media that doctors at the facility have termed his condition critical as he felt difficulty in breathing while undergoing a scheduled dialysis process "after which the doctors decided to shift him on a ventilator".

 

Born to a family of traders in Gujarat, Mr Edhi arrived in Pakistan in 1947.

 

The state’s failure to help his struggling family care for his mother – paralysed and suffering from mental health issues – was his painful and decisive turning point towards philanthropy.

 

 

 

Revered by many as a national hero, Mr Edhi created a charitable empire out of nothing. He masterminded Pakistan’s largest welfare organisation almost single-handedly, entirely with private donations.

 

Content with just two sets of clothes, he slept in a windowless room of white tiles adjoining the office of his charitable foundation. Sparsely equipped, it had just one bed, a sink and a hotplate.

 

“He never established a home for his own children,” his wife Bilquis, who manages the foundation’s homes for women and children, told in an interview this year.

 

What he has established is something of a safety net for the poor and destitute, mobilising the nation to donate and help take action – filling a gap left by a lack of welfare state.

 

Mr Edhi has been nominated several times for the Nobel Peace Prize, and appeared on the list again this year – put there by Malala Yousafzai, Pakistan’s teenage Nobel laureate.