Non-government organisations (NGOs) working in quake-affected Battagram district have suspended their relief operations after attacks on their workers. On October 30, eight people were injured when an explosive device went off outside the office and residential compound of the Strengthening Participatory Organisation (SPO), a local NGO running health and education projects. “We’re not sure what happened,” Malik Shahbaz, SPO’s manager of emergency projects, said in Islamabad. “Most of our staff are now in hospital. We were not expecting the blast.”
Shahbaz said the SPO had received threats in the past, and only recently resumed its operations following an earlier suspension.
Also on October 30, a compound of CARE International was attacked with automatic gunfire, but no injuries were reported. CARE International Acting Country Director Daw Mohammad said, “We are suspending our operations for at least a week.”
“We have suspended our operations and evacuated staff,” Michael McGrath, country director of Save the Children US in the NWFP, was quoted as saying by the IRIN, a United Nations information unit.