Caritas needs help to raise $100,000

Sydney
11 November 2001

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Caritas needs help to raise $100,000

By Kathleen Carmody

Caritas Australia has pledged $100,000 to support humanitarian aid work in Afghanistan and Pakistan by Caritas Internationalis.

It has appealed for donations to support the work, which will contribute to the basic needs of Afghan refugees and displaced people by providing water, food rations, temporary shelters, fuel, bedding, clothing and health care.

Caritas Australia says the money is needed to help more 200,000 refugees in Pakistan and more than 200,000 people in Afghanistan survive the harsh winter,

Pakistan had been allowing the most desperate refugees, mainly children and women, to enter the country on humanitarian grounds. But the borders are now closed.

“The desperate situation of the Afghani refugees who have fled the military strikes, but are not being permitted to cross the border into Pakistan, demands an effective international response,” says Caritas Australia’s national director Jack de Groot.

“We call on the government of Pakistan to open its borders so that these refugees can receive humanitarian assistance.”

The humanitarian situation in Afghanistan, already precarious after two decades of war and three years of drought, has been made far worse since the September 11 terrorist attacks in the US.

Before the recent events, Pakistan was already housing close to two million Afghan refugees. A further 1.5 million Afghan refugees are in Iran, with as many as 400,000 more reported to be on their way there. They urgently need assistance.

More than five million vulnerable people in Afghanistan – about a quarter of the population – are at risk because of severe food shortages. They include almost a million children under the age of five.

The UN estimates that 50,000 tonnes of food must reach the people of Afghanistan within the next few weeks in order to avoid a humanitarian crisis.

Caritas says these refugees bear no responsibility for the terrorist attacks in the US or the 20-year war that their country has experienced.

Caritas Internationalis has set a target of $US11 million to fund its assistance program for Afghan refugees.

To make a donation, call Caritas Australia by phone (02) 9956 5799, fax (02) 9956 5782 or email caritas@caritas.org.au