In the summer of 2007, Thomas Wicha, the IT specialist of epos Beratungsgesellschaft and I traveled to Pakistan on a request of the WHO to EPOS to evaluate two tertiary care centers in the country regarding their readiness for hospital accreditation.

While we had heard that American and British experts had turned down the job offer, we felt that the political situation in Pakistan was stable enough at that time to carry out such a mission.

At the end of the first weekend in the country, our driver took us back to a guest house when our UN Toyota Landcruiser broke down at a busy intersection in Islamabad. The driver seemed not very surprised by this, as it had happened before and the car more than 600,000 km on its odometer. He told us that he would call the UN compound to send us a replacement car and that we would be out of there in approx. 20 minutes.

Our driver then called the headquarters. Suddenly I noticed that he was sweating profusely. In the next moment, I received a call from the UN compound on my mobile. A man told me: “You are about 500 meters away from the Red Mosque. The Queen of England has just knighted Salman Rushdie and Friday prayers will end in 20 minutes. The UN compound has been closed down and no one is allowed to go out anymore as potentially violent demonstrations are expected. We cannot help you. Good luck!”

Of course, this news came as a surprise. There was little comfort in the fact that Thomas would probably be abducted first, as he was blond, blue-eyed and wearing a bright orange (!) tie, while I had dark hair (turning grey soon afterwards – a connection?), a mustache and was wearing more discrete clothes. Our next action was to abandon the car, as the big UN signage on the side did not seem to be very helpful in this situation.

Luckily, our driver was able to flag down a private car, which then took us back to our guesthouse shortly after and away from the scene. Later that weekend the Red Mosque was taken over by islamists and occupied for several weeks before being stormed later by the army under orders from President Musharraf.