Sacrifices in fighting terrorism: Pakistan gets little world media attention, UN told

Pakistan told a United Nations panel on Thursday that it had suffered huge human and material losses in fighting the scourge of terrorism, but its sacrifices had received little attention in the international media.
"Very few countries have been ravaged by the monster of terrorism as brutally as Pakistan: 30,000 innocent Pakistani men, women and children killed; 6,532 of our troops martyred, while over 19,000 injured," Jahangir Iqbal, Pakistan's Delegate to the General Assembly's Special Political and Decolonisation Committee, said.
"This is the price Pakistan has paid in protecting itself, and, indeed, the rest of the world," he said in a debate on information-related questions. "Pakistan is the worst victim of terrorism; it has suffered huge human and material losses, an aspect seldom highlighted in the media," the Pakistan Delegate added.
Pakistan, he pointed out, was the biggest troop-contributor for the peacekeeping operations in various UN missions across the world, and that his country would continue playing its role in promoting global peace and security. Iqbal said the UN Department of Public Information (DPI), like the previous year, had provided timely and adequate information to the international media about the devastating floods triggered by the torrential rains in southern Pakistan.
He commended the Department's efforts to sensitise the world community about that calamity. Along with the United Nations, his government had been working hard to meet the needs of flood victims at a time when it was also engaged in fighting terrorism, he added. The Pakistan Delegate said that the United Nations Information Centres around the world were the 'eyes and ears' of the Organisation, and he supported the allocation of adequate resources to strengthen them.