Religious relief groups aid Iraqi families
1/10/2003 News media contact: Linda Bloom · (646) 369-3759 · New York NOTE: Photographs are available with this report. By United Methodist News Service Continuing
a long-time commitment to relief work in Iraq, Church World Service and
several other religious organizations have set up a $1 million campaign
to improve health care for Iraqi children.
The "All My Children"
campaign will use the money raised to purchase antibiotics, anesthesia,
IV solution kits and items related to providing clean drinking water.
CWS,
the relief arm of the National Council of Churches, is led by the Rev.
John McCullough, a United Methodist pastor. Along with the Mennonite
Central Committee, it has participated in humanitarian work in Iraq for
the past decade. CWS has provided more than $3 million in blankets,
food, medical supplies, school kits and health kits for families and
children there since 1991. The Mennonites have shipped about $4.2
million worth of food and material assistance during that period.
The
new appeal "is probably a broader ecumenical effort than what we are
typically dealing with," said Rick Augsburger, CWS director of emergency
response, in a Jan. 8 interview. "It's a unique grouping of faith-based
efforts that are trying to work together to provide this support."
Other initial campaign partners are Stop Hunger Now, Sojourners and Jubilee Partners.
Augsburger,
who will travel to Amman, Jordan, in late January to help coordinate
the response, said he expects the raising of campaign resources and
establishing the program to be a long-term process, especially since a
permit is being requested from the Office of Foreign Asset Control, a
part of the U.S. State Department.
Licensing is necessary because
of the trade sanctions imposed on Iraq since 1990. The Rev. Ray
Buchanan, a United Methodist pastor and founder of Stop Hunger Now, and
other members of a recent National Council of Churches-sponsored
delegation to Iraq witnessed some of the long-term effects of those
sanctions during visits to hospitals and schools and realized the
threats a war with the United States might hold.
Buchanan said he
was heartened to learn from UNICEF staff based in Iraq that
malnutrition had leveled off because the government's food distribution
network, bolstered by the U.N.'s humanitarian "oil for food" program,
was providing 2,200 calories a day to the citizens.
What he found
frightening, he said, was that "70 to 80 percent of the Iraqi
population is totally, 100 percent, dependent on these food rations. In
case of war, the infrastructure of this food distribution would be
destroyed within the first few days or first week."
The health
care situation is "abysmal," he added, because "dual use" rules under
the sanctions cover many items and have resulted in Iraq being unable to
obtain certain medicines, unable to repair equipment and even unable to
receive medical journals. Those rules prohibit supplying Iraq with
items that could have a military use.
"As far as I'm concerned,
the sanctions are nothing more than sanctioned torture," Buchanan said.
"That is horrible when you say it, but when you have to watch infants
dying in incubators that just need parts … if that's not torture, I
don't know what is."
The United Nations attributes the deaths of
at least several hundred thousand Iraqi children to the effects of the
trade sanctions, the National Council of Churches has noted.
Besides
participating in the "All My Children" campaign, Stop Hunger Now will
work on emergency food relief for Iraqi families. While there, Buchanan
set up working relationships with the Islamic Relief Association, which
he said had a long, credible history as a humanitarian agency, and with
the relief arm of the Middle East Council of Churches. The Islamic group
has warehouses in Baghdad, and the Christian council is putting
supplies together in Jordan, where Iraqi refugees would be likely to
come.
More information can be found at www.churchworldservice.org and www.stophungernow.org on the Internet.
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