Pakistan evicts Save the Children foreign staff

(September 08, 2012) The Pakistani government has ordered foreign staff members of Save the Children to leave the country, a spokesman for the international aid group has said. The group has recently come under Pakistani government scrutiny because of reports that it helped facilitate meetings between the United States and a doctor who allegedly helped hunt down al-Qaida leader, Osama bin Laden, a charge which the group has vehemently denied. Ghulam Qadri, the group's director for programme planning and communications said on Thursday that the Ministry of Interior informed the organization earlier this week that its six foreign staffers would have to leave the country within two weeks, although they have since been able to extend the deadline. He did not specify the new date. Save the Children has about 2,000 Pakistani employees across the country, who will continue to work despite the expulsion. He said the ministry gave no reason for the expulsion: ``We are working with the government to find out the details for this action.'' Save the Children is an international aid group with operations in more than 50 countries around the world that aims to improve the lives of children. The group has been working in Pakistan since 1979, according to its website. Recently it has been helping some of the roughly 250,000 people who have fled fighting in Pakistan's Khyber agency, a tribal area that borders Afghanistan.