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Church World Service Emergency Response Update: Tsunami Recovery
Jan. 13, 2005
SITUATION: An update of Church World Service tsunami response in Sri Lanka and Indonesia.
SRI LANKA:
A team from Church World Service Pakistan/Afghanistan provided supplies
and assessed continuing needs in Batticaloa, Sri Lanka, last week,
meeting with tsunami survivors in a camp for the displaced, as well as
with camp managers and with Sri Lanka church leaders.
CWS shelter kits were distributed in a number of locales, including a Pentecostal church camp which accommodated survivors from the affected community of Kalakoda. There were 1,263 people in the camp -- 435 families in all.
(CWS sent 500 family shelter kits from its regional warehouse in Pakistan to Sri Lanka at the request of the National Christian Council of Sri Lanka , NCCSL. Each shelter kit contains a family tent, a ground sheet and a plastic tarp for a value of $108 for each kit. Total value: $54,000.)
The CWS team met with several survivors, including Chadrakala, a young woman in her 20s who lost her young, year-and-a-half-old child in the tsunami. "I am scared of (the) sea and I don't want to go back," she said. "My husband also wants to stay away from the sea. We need a respectable livelihood and a shelter to start our life again."
Among the issues facing the survivors are the disposal of dead bodies,
and reports of sexual abuse of women and attempts at child trafficking.
The CWS team reports that they saw evidence of "interfaith harmony" between different religious groups: Muslims, Christians, Hindus and Buddhists. The CWS team heard stories of Buddhists and Christian leaders traveling across country to provide relief materials for Muslims; also heard were stories of followers of all four religions saying last rites for their loved ones together.
In an interview, the Rev. Jayasiri Peiris, the general secretary of the National Christian Council of Sri Lanka, said that these and other examples gave him and other religious leaders a renewed sense of hope amid tragedy. He added: "Our religious and political leadership should be wise enough to identify this silver lining in the cloud. We need donations and donors' care and the money to rebuild the country. But more than that, we need trust between various factions of the society, and that will help the country to regain its strength."
He noted that Sri Lanka's two-decade-long civil war claimed 60,000 lives, while the tsunami in the course of 20 minutes took a toll of 30,000 lives. "This shows the need to come together," he said.
The Rev. Peiris added a word of thanks to CWS for supplying disaster survivors with shelter kits and tents.
INDONESIA:
++ Additional supplies from CWS in Jakarta arrived Jan. 11 to be warehoused at Medan for further distribution in Banda Aceh.
++A CWS airlift shipment of 100 IMA Medicine Boxes for Indonesia is expected to arrive in Indonesia from the United States within several days. Each Medicine Box contains drugs and medical products to treat common illnesses of 1,000 adults and children for about three months; together the 100 Medicine Boxes will provide medicines for 100,000 people for about three months. This airlift also includes 42,000 rice and soy packaged meals, as well as 1,512 relief kits from the Mennonite Central Committee. The kits include personal hygiene items. The total value of the airlift shipment -- Medicine Boxes, food and relief kits -- is $424,680.
++ The CWS medical team in Banda Aceh conducted medical services in camps in Darussalam. The team reports that respiratory tract infections are the most serious problem, followed by myalgia (muscle pains and aches), and skin infections.
++ Several camps for the displaced have been scheduled to receive medical assistance from the CWS Banda Aceh medical team. These camps are selected based on the number of displaced persons per family and the lack of assistance and food distribution that have yet to arrive in the area.
++ The CWS team medical has confirmed what has been widely reported in the Indonesia media: that an unspecified skin disease has emerged, 0 though only affecting a number of men who took part in assisting mass burials. Members of the CWS medical team are under the assumption that this skin disease is a form of contamination by the decomposed bodies, or a psychosomatic reaction. Another possibility is contamination of water from the dead bodies. The CWS team has been able to provide curative treatment, as well as psychosocial support.
Contributions to support CWS Tsunami Recovery efforts may be sent to
your denomination or directly to:
Church World Service
Tsunami Recovery (Acct. #6970)
P.O. Box 968
Elkhart, IN 46515
Contributions may also be made online by credit card or by calling: (800)
297-1516, ext. 222.