IMF team visits Pakistan for $7 billion bailout program review

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s troubled history with animal welfare is once more in the spotlight as a prominent animal rescue organization has called for donations to help care for dozens of exotic monkeys illegally trafficked to Karachi, saying it was temporarily holding the creatures while making arrangements to house them permanently.

The Ayesha Chundrigar Foundation announced last week customs officials had called the non-profit for help to care for dozens of capuchins and marmoset monkeys they had seized at Karachi airport from a man who had “sneakily” imported them by forging documents.

Capuchin monkeys and marmosets have been known to show fear behaviors in response to the loud call from a primate species unknown to them, and ACF said the animals were traumatized after being brought to Pakistan in small “coffin-like carriers” without any access to light. The charity also said they were starving.

“We urgently need your help for the bigger enclosure while we finalize where we are going to be sending them permanently,” said ACF, which has built a small temporary enclosure for the animals. “However, quarantine is four months anyway, and they are under treatment so they need a bigger place to be rehabilitated and quarantined where they can just relax some more and run around.”

A video shared by ACF on Monday showed the monkeys enjoying a platter of fruit.

“They all have got the rabies vaccinations and some of them are not well with multiple issues. But the joy on their face when they see the fruit platter for the first time is priceless,” the charity said. 

Founded in 2013, ACF says it rescues up to 40 abused animals daily and manages a sanctuary for 1,800 animals. 

A welfare organization said last week a black bear was rescued by local authorities in Pakistan’s Punjab province and shifted to Islamabad. The seven-year-old black bear called Rocky had been kept illegally in Punjab province and abused in 35 fights, the welfare organization said.

Last December, an elephant died at a safari park less than two weeks after being reunited with her sister, the latest tragedy to affect elephants in captivity in Pakistan.

In 2020, a pair of sick and badly neglected dancing Himalayan brown bears left a notorious zoo in Islamabad for a sanctuary in Jordan.

Kaavan became known as the “world’s loneliest elephant” because he spent many years alone in a Pakistani zoo. In 2020, he was moved to a sanctuary in Cambodia. 

PESHAWAR: Intermittent rains over the past five days have killed four people and injured nine across Pakistan's northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, a report by the provincial disaster management authority said on Monday.

Pakistan’s National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) last week warned that a strong westerly wave would trigger rains, thunderstorms and snowfall in the upper parts of the country from Feb. 24 to Mar. 1.

“Since Feb. 26, four people have died and nine people have been injured in accidents due to rains in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa,” a report by the Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) said. 

The report said that the four dead include three men and one woman, while the injured include four children, three women and two men. It said 14 houses in total were affected due to the rains out of which 10 were partially damaged and three were completely damaged. 

“The accidents due to rains occurred in the districts of Haripur, Battagram, Bajaur, Upper and Lower Kohistan, Dir, Hangu, Khyber and Torghar,” the report said. 

The PDMA said it has directed district administrations to provide immediate relief to families affected by the rains and ensure that the best medical facilities are provided to the injured.

“PDMA has directed all district administrations and concerned institutions to utilize all resources to open the highways closed due to rain and snowfall,” the report said. 

Parts of Pakistan last month received rains after a months-long drought severely impacted crops like wheat, a staple food, as well as vital cash crops like potatoes in several regions, according to the Pakistani climate change ministry.

Torrential rains during the monsoon season of 2022 triggered flash floods across the country, with scientists attributing it to climate change impacts. The floods killed over 1,700 people and inflicted damages worth $33 billion on Pakistan, as per official estimates.