Legendary Pakistani social worker Edhi has died in Karachi

In a statement, he said there are few men who have done as much good and made as much a difference to the lives and livelihoods of the Pakistani people as Abdul Sattar Edhi. He was being treated at the Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation and had been in increasingly poor health in recent months-being admitted to hospital for a short period just last month.

Earlier in the day, the family had had asked to pray for Edhi whose condition deteriorated and who was said to be breathing with the help of a ventilator.

In June, former President Asif Ali Zardari had offered to send Edhi overseas for treatment but he refused saying he would prefer to get treatment in Pakistan at a government hospital just like the poor an needy people of the country.

Born to a family of traders in Gujarat, Mr Edhi arrived in Pakistan in 1947. “Social welfare was my vocation, I had to free it”, he says in his autobiography, “A Mirror To The Blind”.

The most prominent symbols of the foundation – its 1,500 ambulances ≠ are deployed with unusual efficiency to the scene of extremist attacks that tear through Pakistan with devastating regularity.

Mr Edhi began his charitable work as a young man. The sparsely equipped room echoed his entire philanthropic attitude toward life.

A little while ago, the son of Abdul Sattar Edhi confirmed his father’s death. Edhi has been nominated several times for the Nobel Peace Prize, and was considered a favorite this year after being nominated by Pakistan’s teenage Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai.

The 88-year-old’s reputation for austerity and generosity resonated deeply in Pakistan, a country of 190 million people whose government is riddled with corruption and where public health and welfare services are weak.