People light candles in memory of German-born nun Dr. Ruth Pfau, in Karachi, Pakistan August 19, 2017. REUTERS/Akhtar Soomro

KARACHI (Reuters) - Pakistani soldiers on Saturday carried the flag-draped coffin of German-born Catholic nun Ruth Pfau to a state funeral where she was honored after devoting her life to eradicating leprosy in the country.

Widely known as Pakistan’s Mother Teresa, Pfau died last week in the southern city of Karachi at age 87. She is to be buried in her adopted homeland.

Mourners paid their last respects as Pfau’s coffin was carried to the Marie Adelaide Leprosy Centre that she founded before being taken on to St. Patrick’s Cathedral for the official service.

Pfau had been living in Pakistan since 1960, and her leprosy center in Karachi was Pakistan’s first hospital dedicated to treating the disease. She later opened treatment centers across the country.

“It is a big loss to this hospital and to humanity. It is very hard to find a person like her in today’s era,” said Yasmeen Morris, a staff member at the center.

“She led a very simple life and she loved humanity.”

In 1996, the World Health Organisation declared that leprosy had been controlled in Pakistan, which led Pfau to the more challenging task of eliminating the disease.

Last year, the number of patients under treatment for leprosy fell to 531 from over 19,000 in the 1980s.</s>German-born nun Ruth Pfau, known as 'Pakistan's Mother Teresa', was given a state funeral (Reuters)</s>KARACHI, Pakistan (AP) - Mourners have attended a state funeral of Ruth Pfau, a German physician and nun who earned international acclaim by devoting her life to the eradication of leprosy in Pakistan.

Known as "Pakistan's Mother Teresa," she died on Aug. 10 at age 87 in Karachi, the capital of southern Sindh province.

State-run Pakistan television in live broadcast showed last rituals of Pfau, which were held at a church in Karachi.

People light candles to pay tribute to Ruth Pfau, a German doctor and nun who devoted her life to the eradication of leprosy in Pakistan, in Karachi, Pakistan, Friday, Aug. 18, 2017. Pakistan's prime minister has announced a state funeral for Ruth Pfau. The funeral will take place on Saturday. (AP Photo/Fareed Khan)

Pakistani politicians, military officials, members of civil society and hundreds of supporters of Pfau attended the service.

Leprosy remained a problem in Pakistan from the 1950s until about 1996, and Pfau played a key role in efforts to bring the disease under control.

Pakistani workers make arrangements ahead of a funeral of Ruth Pfau, a German doctor and nun who devoted her life to the eradication of leprosy in Pakistan, at the Saint Patrick's Cathedral in Karachi, Pakistan, Friday, Aug. 18, 2017. Pakistan's prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi has announced a state funeral for Ruth Pfau. (AP Photo/Shakil Adil)

People light candles to pay tribute to Ruth Pfau, a German doctor and nun who devoted her life to the eradication of leprosy in Pakistan, in Karachi, Pakistan, Friday, Aug. 18, 2017. Pakistan's prime minister has announced a state funeral for Ruth Pfau. The funeral will take place on Saturday. (AP Photo/Fareed Khan)

People hold pictures of Ruth Pfau, a German doctor and nun who devoted her life to the eradication of leprosy in Pakistan, in Karachi, Pakistan, Friday, Aug. 18, 2017. Pakistan's prime minister has announced a state funeral for Ruth Pfau. The funeral will take place on Saturday. (AP Photo/Fareed Khan)</s>KARACHI: Last rites of Pakistan’s ‘Mother Teresa’ Dr Ruth Pfau will be held today in Karachi with full state honours.

Pakistan government has announced to accord a state funeral to the country’s leprosy fighter Dr Ruth Pfau, who passed away last week at a local hospital in Karachi.

German origin Dr Ruth Pfau devoted her life to treat the patients of Leprosy in Pakistan.

The body of Dr Pfau will be brought to St Patrick Church where her rituals be performed then it will be buried in the Gora graveyard.</s>Ruth Pfau, a German nun who devoted her life to combatting leprosy in Pakistan, is buried with full state honors, in an unprecedented service for a foreign Christian in the Muslim-majority country

KARACHI, Pakistan – Ruth Pfau, a German nun who devoted her life to combatting leprosy in Pakistan, was buried with full state honors on Saturday, August 19, in an unprecedented service for a foreign Christian in the Muslim-majority country.

Pfau, who died at the age of 87 on August 10 was known locally as Pakistan's Mother Teresa. She came to the southern port city of Karachi in 1960 and spent half a century taking care of some of the country's sickest and poorest people.

She was the founder of Marie Adelaide Leprosy Centre in Karachi, where she was being cared for at the time of her death after a short illness.

Pakistan President Mamnoon Hussain attended the state funeral service at St Patrick's Cathedral in the city, where hundreds of people gathered to pay their respects.

The casket, draped in the national flag, was carried by army personnel and Marie Adelaide staff and given a 19-gun salute.

"The entire Pakistani nation pays homage to Dr Pfau's extraordinary work. She will always be fondly remembered. We have lost a national hero," Pakistan's foreign office spokesman Nafees Zakaria Saturday said in a statement.

Working with the government, Pfau expanded leprosy treatment centers in more than 150 cities and towns across Pakistan, training doctors, treating thousands of victims and helping establish a national program to bring the disease under control.

She was honored by the state with the country's two highest civilian awards, the Hilal-e-Imtiaz and the Hilal-e-Pakistan.

Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi earlier expressed his sadness at her death, saying "she may have been born in Germany, but her heart was always in Pakistan".

It was after the horrors of World War II in her native Germany that Pfau decided to dedicate her life to serving humanity, becoming a doctor and joining the Daughters of the Heart of Mary order, founded during the French Revolution.

Not required to take the veil or live in seclusion, she ended up in Pakistan by chance. En route to work in India, visa complications forced her to break the journey in Karachi, where she visited a lepers' colony.

Pfau was also praised for her work in helping victims of devastating flooding in 2010, which left millions of people homeless across swathes of the country. – Rappler.com</s>Sister Ruth Pfau, who has died at the age of 87, was a Catholic nun who, after a childhood spent in Nazi Germany, became known as "the Mother Teresa of Pakistan" for her work in combating the spread of leprosy.</s>Sister Ruth Pfau treats a leprosy patient in Pakistan. (Handout from the Society of the Daughters of the Heart of Mary.)

The medical doctor and member of the Daughters of the Heart of Mary, ministered to leprosy victims for decades. She died Aug. 19.

KARACHI, Pakistan — As the government of Pakistan and the Church prepared for an unprecedented state funeral for a Catholic nun — Sister Ruth Katharina Martha Pfau — Aug. 19 at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Karachi, her associates, Church officials and the media paid glowing tributes to the nun of German origin.

A medical doctor belonging to the Society of the Daughters of the Heart of Mary, Sister Ruth — who landed in Pakistan in 1960 due to visa problems on her way to India and went on to help Pakistan combat leprosy — died Aug. 10 in Karachi at the age of 87.

“Sister Ruth was a fine example of healing, harmony and happiness,” Archbishop Joseph Coutts of Karachi, president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Pakistan, told the Register Aug. 15.

“Her patients — many of them deformed, crippled and pitiful — loved her because, while treating the dreadful disease, she also embraced them and showed them that she loved them as persons,” pointed out Archbishop Coutts.

“Among the doctors and down to the drivers, cleaners and other staff members, you will find Sindhis, Balochis, Pathans and a dozen-odd ethnic groups of different religions working together as one family. This is what always struck me whenever I went to the MALC” — the clinics the nun founded.

The network of more than 100 MALC (Mary Adeline Leprosy Center) centers in Pakistan stretches from the Thar Desert in southern Sindh to the barren hills of Balochistan to the northern borders with Iran and Afghanistan, Archbishop Coutts noted.

Born in Leipzig, Germany, in 1929, where her home was bombed in World War II, Pfau went to France to study medicine and later joined the Society of Daughters of the Heart of Mary.

Upon arrival in Karachi in 1960, Sister Ruth was touched by what she saw at the leprosy colony off Macleod Road in Karachi, a work of charity initiated three years earlier by another member of her congregation, Sister Bernice Vargasi from Mexico.

Sister Ruth founded the MALC in 1962 in Karachi; it included Pakistan’s first hospital dedicated to treating the disease and later extended its branches in all provinces of Pakistan.

“Dr. Pfau, for us, was a living legend, the moving spirit behind the leprosy-control program,” Mervyn Lobo, director of the MALC and associate of Sister Pfau since 1990, told the Register.

As the MALC network spread to far corners of Pakistan, Lobo said, Sister Ruth inspired the formation of the National Leprosy Control Program that worked closely with MALC. The result: In 1996, the World Health Organization declared Pakistan as one of the first countries in Asia to be free of leprosy.

Sister Ruth’s major role in eliminating leprosy, and her concern for the underprivileged in Pakistan, was resonant in the tribute Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi of Pakistan paid to the nun who had been conferred Pakistani citizenship and several national awards.

“Pfau may have been born in Germany — her heart was always in Pakistan,” said the prime minister within hours of her death.

“We will remember her for her courage, her loyalty, her service to the eradication of leprosy and, most of all, her patriotism,” Abbasi said.

Describing her service as “nothing less than a pure manifestation of God’s divine love,” the National Commission for Justice and Peace (NCJP) of Pakistan’s Catholic Church noted that “Dr. Ruth worked tirelessly for the poor and the marginalized communities and was locally known as the ‘Mother Teresa of Pakistan.’”

“It was due to her endless struggle that Pakistan defeated leprosy,” the German Consulate in Karachi posted on Facebook.

Lobo, a Catholic associated with MALC for 27 years, described the nun as “a visionary who single-handedly structured the National Leprosy Control Program across the country.”

Sister Ruth also established Pakistan’s national training institute for leprosy technicians, and those seeking government employment had to complete a two-year diploma course via the center to join the various government leprosy agencies that worked in tandem with MALC.

“A messenger of peace, she worked as if there is no tomorrow,” recalled Lobo.

“Being a very spiritual person, she believed in actual service as worship to God. Though she suffered a lot of misery, this did not deter her. The name of our center building was named after her firm belief in the Holy Mother Mary,” he added.

“Sister Ruth Pfau was such a dedicated and selfless person that she infused a spirit of love and kindness in everyone who happened to meet her,” Peter Jacob, executive director of the Lahore-based Center for Social Justice, told the Register.

“My meeting with her was quite a spiritual experience, strengthening my belief in larger-than-life concepts and living up to egalitarian approaches. She proved that love and kindness can transcend all boundaries and survive in difficult circumstances,” said Jacob, who served as executive secretary and director of the NCJP for 26 years.

The MALC network has more than 270 staff, drawn from Pakistan’s many ethnic communities, and a medical team of a dozen doctors — most of them Christians. Among the doctors who long served under Sister Ruth’s leadership is Dr. Mutahir Zia, a Muslim who is the current medical director of MALC.

“When I passed my medical degree in 1988, I wanted to work in a charitable organization. Since most of the private hospitals were run on profit motives, I was lucky to join Dr. Pfau,” said Zia.

Describing Sister Ruth as a woman with “extraordinary compassion and courage,” Zia recalled, “Even when she had no money, she went on taking up new ventures and challenges. Wherever she went, she captured the peoples’ imagination with her simplicity. Many came forward with offers of help.”

During the earthquake of 2005, she moved to the mountains of Kashmir to build houses for the quake victims, including those affected by leprosy. Zia noted that Sister Ruth also cared for refugees from Afghanistan who were facing deportation and even ventured into jails to care for those in detention.

Among the numerous glowing tributes to the nun in the Pakistani media was an article in the leading English daily The Dawn, titled, “My First Meeting With Dr. Ruth Pfau, the Angel of Manghopir.”

Journalist Owais Tohid recounted his encounter with Sister Ruth as a journalist in training 26 years earlier, including her explanation of why she had dedicated her life to serving Pakistan’s lepers.

“Outcast, alienated, in miserable conditions without any medical facilities, and without normal human interactions,” she said of the suffering. “When I saw that, it changed my life.”</s>related media assets (image or videos) available. Click to see the gallery.

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Pakistani soldiers on Saturday carried the flag-draped coffin of German-born Catholic nun Ruth Pfau to a state funeral where she was honoured after devoting her life to eradicating leprosy in the country.

KARACHI: Pakistani soldiers on Saturday carried the flag-draped coffin of German-born Catholic nun Ruth Pfau to a state funeral where she was honoured after devoting her life to eradicating leprosy in the country.

Widely known as Pakistan's Mother Teresa, Pfau died last week in the southern city of Karachi at age 87. She is to be buried in her adopted homeland.

Mourners paid their last respects as Pfau's coffin was carried to the Marie Adelaide Leprosy Centre that she founded before being taken on to St. Patrick's Cathedral for the official service.

Pfau had been living in Pakistan since 1960, and her leprosy centre in Karachi was Pakistan's first hospital dedicated to treating the disease. She later opened treatment centres across the country.

"It is a big loss to this hospital and to humanity. It is very hard to find a person like her in today's era," said Yasmeen Morris, a staff member at the centre.

"She led a very simple life and she loved humanity."

In 1996, the World Health Organisation declared that leprosy had been controlled in Pakistan, which led Pfau to the more challenging task of eliminating the disease.

Last year, the number of patients under treatment for leprosy fell to 531 from over 19,000 in the 1980s.</s>Women stand next to large portrait of Ruth Pfau, a German physician and nun, at the Marie Adelaide Leprosy Center where army troops prepare to transport Pfau’s body for a funeral in Karachi, Pakistan, Saturday, Aug. 19, 2017. Mourners have attended a state funeral of Ruth Pfau, a German physician and nun who earned international acclaim by devoting her life to the eradication of leprosy in Pakistan. Known as “Pakistan’s Mother Teresa,” she died on Aug. 10 at age 87 in Karachi. (AP Photo/Fareed Khan) Women stand next to large portrait of Ruth Pfau, a German physician and nun, at the Marie Adelaide Leprosy Center where army troops prepare to transport Pfau’s body for a funeral in Karachi, Pakistan, Saturday, Aug. 19, 2017. Mourners have attended a state funeral of Ruth Pfau, a German physician and nun who earned international acclaim by devoting her life to the eradication of leprosy in Pakistan. Known as “Pakistan’s Mother Teresa,” she died on Aug. 10 at age 87 in Karachi. (AP Photo/Fareed Khan)

Mourners on Saturday attended a state funeral for Ruth Pfau, a German physician and nun who earned international acclaim as “Pakistan’s Mother Theresa” by devoting her life to the eradication of leprosy in the Muslim-majority nation.

Pfau died on Aug. 10 at age 87 in the southern port city of Karachi. State-run television broadcast live footage of her casket being carried by a military guard at the city’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

Army troops and others load the casket wrapped in Pakistani flag, of Ruth Pfau, a German physician and nun, into a vehicle to transport it for her funeral in Karachi, Pakistan, Saturday, Aug. 19, 2017. Mourners have attended a state funeral of Pfau, a German physician and nun who earned international acclaim by devoting her life to the eradication of leprosy in Pakistan. Known as “Pakistan’s Mother Teresa,” she died on Aug. 10 at age 87 in Karachi. (AP Photo/Fareed Khan) Army troops and others load the casket wrapped in Pakistani flag, of Ruth Pfau, a German physician and nun, into a vehicle to transport it for her funeral in Karachi, Pakistan, Saturday, Aug. 19, 2017. Mourners have attended a state funeral of Pfau, a German physician and nun who earned international acclaim by devoting her life to the eradication of leprosy in Pakistan. Known as “Pakistan’s Mother Teresa,” she died on Aug. 10 at age 87 in Karachi. (AP Photo/Fareed Khan)

Hundreds of people attended the service at the cathedral, including members of civil society and diplomats. She was later buried in a nearby cemetery, in a funeral attended by President Mamnoon Hussain, army chief Gen. Qamar Javed, senior government officials and Muslim clerics.

Martha Fernando, who worked with Pfau at her Marie Adelaide Leprosy Center, said the German physician’s death was a great loss to humanity. “There is no one like her and there won’t be any replacement to her. We pray to God to send people like her again to this world so that they could continue serving people,” she said.

Colleagues next to casket of Ruth Pfau, a German physician and nun, at the Marie Adelaide Leprosy Center ahead of her funeral in Karachi, Pakistan, Saturday, Aug. 19, 2017. Mourners have attended a state funeral of Pfau, a German physician and nun who earned international acclaim by devoting her life to the eradication of leprosy in Pakistan. Known as “Pakistan’s Mother Teresa,” she died on Aug. 10 at age 87 in Karachi. (AP Photo/Fareed Khan) Colleagues next to casket of Ruth Pfau, a German physician and nun, at the Marie Adelaide Leprosy Center ahead of her funeral in Karachi, Pakistan, Saturday, Aug. 19, 2017. Mourners have attended a state funeral of Pfau, a German physician and nun who earned international acclaim by devoting her life to the eradication of leprosy in Pakistan. Known as “Pakistan’s Mother Teresa,” she died on Aug. 10 at age 87 in Karachi. (AP Photo/Fareed Khan)

Pakistan suffered high rates of leprosy up until the mid-1990s. Pfau played a key role in efforts to bring the disease under control.

For all the latest Pakistan News, download Indian Express App</s>Mourners have attended a state funeral of Ruth Pfau, a German physician and nun who earned international acclaim by devoting her life to the eradication of leprosy in Pakistan.

Known as "Pakistan's Mother Teresa," she died on Aug. 10 at age 87 in Karachi, the capital of southern Sindh province.

State-run Pakistan television in live broadcast showed last rituals of Pfau, which were held at a church in Karachi.

Pakistani politicians, military officials, members of civil society and hundreds of supporters of Pfau attended the service.

Leprosy remained a problem in Pakistan from the 1950s until about 1996, and Pfau played a key role in efforts to bring the disease under control.
Pakistan holds a state funeral for German-born Catholic nun Ruth Pfau, known as "Pakistan's Mother Teresa," who devoted her life to eradicating leprosy in the South Asian country.