Prominent Pakistani philanthropist Abdul Sattar Edhi has died from renal failure, his family has said. He was 88.



Earlier on Friday, Faisal Edhi told a news conference that his father was in critical condition at the intensive care unit of a Karachi hospital.



His condition took a turn for the worse in the afternoon when he faced difficulty breathing while undergoing dialysis at the Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation. Doctors had put Edhi on a ventilator, his son Faisal said.



Edhi's war was against prejudice, cruelty. No politics, no fatwas, no greed. Just humanity for the sake of humanity. pic.twitter.com/i8jLW2UfuZ

In June, he reportedly declined an offer from former president Asif Ali Zardari for treatment abroad, saying he would be treated only in a government hospital in Pakistan.

Edhi was born in 1928 in a village called Bantva inside what is now India’s Gujarat state.



He received the Ramon Magsaysay Award for public service in 1986. The Edhi Foundation operates ambulance services, orphanages, women’s shelters, dispensaries and morgues in several Pakistani cities.



Additional reporting by Alia Chughtai in Karachi.