Fresh note From Sis Yvonne Ridley

Salam @ Peace upon you, sis and bros..

HUhu.. Busy with the acedamic assignments make me a bit unaware bout the latest Muslims issue all around the world.. but, as i browsed my FB this morning, I was awakened by one my FB friend's status, sis Yvonne Ridley, the journalist who is a former Taliban captive and now is a Muslimah.. moreoever, when i met this note from a brother in Islam...

"We need more media coverage; everyone is still talking about obama's speech like a new holy revelation. Everyone please start advertising this on their facebook status feeds. Can someone copy/paste everything sis Yvonne just wrote and put it in a concise note and share it??"

i decided to post this matter in this blog...

Hopefully, it'll help us to be awake and aware on what's happening around the world.. especially onto our Muslim sisters and brothers..

Here is a fresh word from Sis Yvonne who is currently in Pakistan, May Allah Bless sis Yvonne, and whoever who work for the betterment of the world...

It is now 4am in Pakistan and I can not sleep. Every time I close my eyes I recount what I saw and heard today - the young and old, men women and children are in desperate need of our help in the camps, some of which are less than 4 kilometres from the fighting. I met one man who has 12 members of his family and he was given less than an hour to gather them all together and flee on foot.

In all the chaos his 70-year-old mother went missing and he is now beside himself with worry about what has happened to her. Another told me how his elderly father had a massive heart attack and died as they fled from Swat. And one old lady tried talking to me but she has lost her voice, her hearing and she kept hitting her forehead with the palm of her hand....I've seen this before in Afghanistan - she is clearly suffering from shell shock caused by being bombed. She was shaking and I just wrapped my arms around her to give her some comfort but she could not stop shaking. More than 150 babies have been born in the camps and there are thousands of women in various stages of pregnancy. Everyone had tales of woe, whether it was about the so-called Taliban or the aerial bombing and shelling.

The weather changed from being unbearably hot to a tropical storm with high winds, heavy rains followed by flooding. It is hard to imagine how miserable life is for these people. Many of them had comfortable lives, nice large homes and a good standard of living. This war has turned them from being homeowners into beggars overnight. Most of the people I spoke to don't even know if they have homes to return to. One family were attending a wedding party when the war began and they couldn't return home. The area was sealed off.
The media is being kept out....

Military action should have been a last resort and sadly it wasn't. Perhaps if the politicians had their homes in the swat Valley they might have thought twice before creating an exodus of three million people. Not one person said to me they were glad the military had taken action - especially the young boy whose leg was amputated and his sister lost her arm in the bombing.

Tomorrow evening I am going on PTV for a live appeal for funds to help one camp in particular that I visited. But if anyone reading this is a psychiatrist or counselor; please offer your services - people are suffering horrendous mental health problems. They are traumatised and providing a safe haven, food and water is not going to fix their state of minds. We need mental health experts out here as soon as possible. You can't put a sticking plaster on someone who is shell-shocked.

And the international community has been rubbish, as usual. Only one fifth of the aid promised from countries around the world has come in. This happened during the Pakistan Earthquake - lots of promises but no delivery. It looks like ordinary people around the world are going to have to come together yet again, because governments and politicians are useless.

-Yvonne Ridley-