Following an explosion in Lower Dir district, North West Frontier Province, on Wednesday, February 3, Ministry of Health and Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) teams working in the emergency room of Timurgara district hospital received 126 wounded people, including children.

“Most of the wounded have shrapnel related injuries all over their bodies – on the face, abdomen and feet,” explained Dr.Ashraf Alam, medical officer for MSF in Timurgara. “We received 12 people in severe life threatening condition, five of them have already undergone immediate surgery. It was a heavy blast and quite close to a school where children were going out for break time,” added Dr. Alam.

In Lower Dir, MSF supports the district referral hospital in Timurgara. 1,100 patients are treated each week at the hospital’s emergency room, both by Ministry of Health and MSF medical teams, who take care of the patients most at risk and support the management of mass casualty response. MSF has set up a new operating theatre, a post-operative unit and implemented a sterilization and waste management system for the hospital.

Since 1998 MSF has been providing free-of-charge medical assistance to Pakistani nationals and Afghan refugees suffering from the effects of armed conflicts, poor access to health care and natural disasters in NWFP, FATA, Balochistan and Kashmir. MSF chooses to rely solely on private donation for its work in Pakistan and does not accept funding from any government.

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