Our Work in Pakistan
Pakistan has the world’s sixth largest population and is the second most populous Muslim nation behind Indonesia. After its independence from Britain in 1947, Pakistan fought three wars against its eastern neighbor, India, before its security concerns shifted westwards following the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Afghan guerrilla groups turned Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier Province (now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province) into an armed camp during the 1980s and 1990s. Today, the rise of militant Islam in the loosely administered tribal lands along the Pakistan-Afghanistan frontier poses the greatest security challenge, both to the Pakistani government and much of the world. It is here that remnants of the Al Qaeda terrorist group have taken sanctuary and where the resurgent Taliban have launched their challenge to the U.S.-backed government in Kabul. Armed conflict between militant fundamentalists and Pakistani security forces in recent years has created the world’s largest displaced population, including 1.8 million refugees—mainly from Afghanistan and an undetermined number of internally displace Pakistanis.
International Medical Corps has worked in Pakistan since 1984, initially providing basic paramedical training to young Afghan refugees, who then returned home to treat neglected local populations. Our assistance extended in 1999 to the local Pakistani population in volatile frontier areas and in 2005, we were among the first to respond to the massive earthquake in the frontier area. Today, International Medical Corps provides primary health care services to internally-displaced Pakistanis in the frontier areas, offers comprehensive basic health services to Afghan refugees who remain on the Pakistani side of the border, operates an emergency obstetrics care center in the city of Peshawar and runs water and sanitation facilities in the tribal areas for internally displaced Pakistanis and Afghan refugees.