Moray woman relives bomb terror
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A MORAY woman staying in Pakistan during the time of Osama Bin Laden’s killing has described how she was shaken by a terrorist attack in the neighbourhood where she lives.
Hannah Campbell works as a development consultant in Karachi, and lives just two streets away from the scene where a bomb ripped through a bus packed with Pakistani military personnel.
The bus was travelling through a defence housing scheme in April when it was hit by a devastating blast from a device on a motorcycle which killed two Navy personnel and injured 37.
Less than a week later, news filtered through that Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden was dead after being shot by US Navy Seals in Northern Pakistan.
And even now, more than three months after the killing, Hannah (27), from Clunes, near Deskford, said she is unable to visit the head office of her employers in Hyderabad, two hours away, or make the 45-minute trip to her nearest beach because of security threats.
Bin Laden’s death in May may have been greeted with joy in the Western world but, for Hannah, it led to a nerve-shredding experience living as a British expat in the city as tensions reached fever pitch in the wake of the Americans’ intervention.
"I can see why the Americans wanted to celebrate his death and, for sure, it’s a form of closure, but the more they celebrated and partied in America, the more nervous we got here," she told the Northern Scot.
"Things were OK for a while, then they started attacking military bases. A week before they caught Osama Bin Laden, a terrorist on a motorbike drove into a bus of Navy personnel and blew it up – two streets from my house.
"I live in a very quiet and very safe part of town so that was a little too close to home."
Hannah lives in the midst of a residential area which houses mid-level Pakistan Navy officers.
Trouble began to escalate earlier this year when a number of suspected Al Qaeda members within the Navy were identified and arrested by Naval intelligence.
When the members were not released, terror alerts were issued that Pakistan military personnel would be targeted.
Two buses were blown up, killing four Navy members, and three weeks after Bin Laden’s death a Pakistani Naval station came under attack, resulting in the death of 18 Navy members.
More recently, tensions have eased in Pakistan, much to Hannah’s relief. Security is still a lot tighter than it was when she arrived in the country a year ago, and she is well aware of a number of no-go areas for foreigners like herself, but she no longer feels she is looking over her shoulder.
"It’s frustrating when we can’t go to the beach now, even though it is totally safe when we are there.
"But for the most part I can’t complain. Life here is still pretty great and it’s certainly very interesting seeing how things unfold.
Hannah first travelled out to Pakistan to help communities devastated by the floods of just over a year ago. She was able to stay with her godparents, Phillip and Sally Marsham, who are based in Karachi, where Mr Marsham is managing director for a shipping company.
She described how families were uprooted from their ancestral homes and then rejected by cramped refugee camps, forcing them to sleep rough with no shelter from the rain or the intense heat.
Last September she returned to her home in the Cullen area to raise funds for the flood relief effort, and with the help of family and friends made more than £1,400 from a soup and sweet event in her community.
A year on from the floods, she said the weather has been a complete contrast with the country experiencing a real dry spell.
"What’s weird is that we have had no rain yet at all, and it’s the strangest feeling waiting for rain. I guess it’s because we know that when it does rain it seriously rains, but until then it’s still 35 degrees while we wait."
Over the past 12 months, towns and villages have slowly been rebuilt. Many of the flood victims have finally been able to return to their local communities, though with their land ruined some have chosen to remain in relief camps because there is no work for them at home.
"We wait to see what chaos this year’s monsoon season will bring," Hannah said.
"The infrastructure is still a mess here, that will be the biggest problem. Banks have not been rebuilt on river beds.
"I was recently told that one of the reasons the floods had such a disastrous effect in Pakistan last year was because of mass fires in Russia at the same time affecting temperatures and clouds.
"So, hopefully, we will not see the same scale of disaster as last year, that’s when the rains eventually come."
