Pakistan asks NGO ”Save the Children” to leave country

Islamabad

Pakistan Government today ordered “international children’s aid agency” ‘Save the Children’ to leave the country within 15 days, saying the NGO was involved in “anti-Pakistan activities”.

The organisation’s country office in the capital has been sealed and its foreign staff has been directed to leave Pakistan within 15 days, police said.

A statement issued by the Interior Ministry said the international NGO was involved in “anti-Pakistan activities”, Geo News reported.

It is not the first occasion when the NGO has been asked to leave Pakistan. In 2012, the charity’s expat staff were forced to leave the country after an intelligence report linked it to a fake vaccination programme launched to track down Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden.

A Pakistan intelligence report had linked the aid agency to Pakistani doctor Shakeel Afridi, who the CIA allegedly used to carry out the fake vaccination programme.

Save the Children has always denied it had any links with Afridi or the CIA.

The NGO’s activities had been under strict scrutiny for the past six months.

PTI