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Church World Service sends $1.2 million in supplies to Iraq

7/2/2003 News media contact: Tim Tanton · (615) 742-5470 · Nashville, Tenn.

By United Methodist News Service*

Church World Service, the humanitarian agency supported by the United Methodist Church and many other denominations, is shipping $1.2 million in donated medical supplies to Iraq.

With the United States focused on law and order and rebuilding efforts, "Church World Service is keeping front and center the extreme humanitarian and health conditions that many Iraqi people are still experiencing - especially the children," said the Rev. John McCullough, executive director of CWS and a United Methodist. The agency is based in New York.

Steve Weaver, CWS international disaster response consultant, is coordinating the medical supply shipment to Iraq via Jordan. The Lloyd A. Fry Foundation donated shipping funds for the supplies, which include surgical kits and sterile surgical components.

Speaking by phone from Baghdad, Weaver told CWS that humanitarian aid efforts continue even though the security situation is "not great." Nongovernmental organizations continue to serve as a lifeline, especially in the health sector, as the provisional authority struggles to get Iraq's public health system back up to full capacity.

CWS cited a United Nations report that Iraq's health care system is operating at no more than half of its capacity and that malnutrition among children has doubled in some parts of the country since the start of the war. In Baghdad, acute malnutrition rates had increased to 7.7 percent of children under five, reflecting an increase from 4 percent before the war.

"There is quite a lot of confusion still," Weaver said. Authorities "are not sure what medical supplies are in storage, and distribution systems have broken down."

CWS has been addressing humanitarian needs in Iraq for more than a decade. From 1991 through 2002, the agency provided more than $3 million in blankets, food, medical supplies, "Gift of the Heart" School and Health Kits and other aid for families and children whose resources have been exhausted by a decade of war and subsequent trade sanctions.

In December 2002, CWS helped found the multi-agency "All Our Children" campaign for Iraqi children's health. The campaign, supported by the United Methodist Committee on Relief, has provided $264,000 in cash and $183,414 in in-kind aid for medicine, medical supplies, emergency food aid, blankets, wheelchairs and hygiene supplies for pediatric hospitals and clinics and to a program serving street children.

CWS said it expects a substantial portion of the $1.2 million in medical supplies to be distributed to pediatric hospitals in support of the All Our Children campaign.

UMCOR is responding to the crisis in Iraq through ecumenical relief agencies such as CWS as well as Action by Churches Together, the Middle East Council of Churches, Norwegian Church Aid and the Mennonite Central Committee. Contributions can be designated for UMCOR's Advance #623225-4 "Iraq Emergency" and placed in church offering plates or sent directly to UMCOR, 475 Riverside Dr., Room 330, New York, NY 10115. Credit-card donations can be made by calling (800) 554-8583.

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*This story was adapted from a Church World Service press release.

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