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Stamford, CT, June 11 2004 – On Sunday, June 13, AmeriCares will airlift 30,000 pounds of additional lifesaving medicines and hospital supplies to help alleviate the ongoing health crisis in refugee camps on the Chad/Sudan border. An AmeriCares relief team is en route to the Chadian capital of N’djamena, where they will board smaller planes to reach refugees in Bahai, and Cariari.
The airlift follows a large AmeriCares air shipment of emergency relief supplies to Chad on May 15. The aid was delivered to AmeriCares’ partner, the International Rescue Committee, which has established mobile health care clinics and drug distribution protocols that are helping save the lives of those driven to this desolate location.
The cargo includes 140,000 treatments of water purification supplies (PUR® sachets), remedies for diarrhea and cholera, IV fluids and other essential drugs and relief provisions.
The aid will help an estimated 25,000 people who live in appalling conditions and face severe shortages of food, water, insufficient sanitation and access to essential medicines. Many suffer from acute malnutrition, diarrhea and other water borne diseases.
Terrorized Sudanese, mostly women and children, continue to overwhelm the border camps in their efforts to seek safe haven from violent militia attacks in neighboring Darfur, Sudan. Moreover, the heavy rainy season has also begun, impeding what rudimentary roads existed, and severely obstructing relief supplies from reaching those most in need.
Nearly 200,000 Sudanese have crossed the border into Chad and another 1 million have been forced from their homes and are internally displaced within Sudan. UN officials estimate more than 2 million people are affected by the violence that began 16 months ago.