Solomon Islands: Emergency supplies for the Weather Coast
18-08-2003 News Release 03/96
A field team from the Solomon Islands Red Cross (SIRC) has just returned from the Weather Coast after distributing 100 family kits to displaced families in this isolated coastal region of southern Guadalcanal. The team of seven included two first-aiders, who treated over fifty people.
After a six-hour journey in two boats, the team arrived in the village of Veuru, where they distributed the kits to families who had fled their homes because of the unrest in the area. The kits were provided with the assistance of the ICRC, and contain kitchen utensils, fishing equipment, garden tools, seeds and hygiene articles. They were taken from the emergency stocks that the SIRC maintains for just this type of eventuality. As well as distributing the family kits, the team assessed the needs of three villages in the area.
This is the first mission that any relief organization has made to the Weather Coast since November 2002, when the SIRC last delivered emergency supplies to displaced persons in the area.
The SIRC has made similar distributions to 304 displaced families who have sought safety in and around the capital, Honiara, and further assistance is planned for the future as part of the SIRC/ICRC's assistance programme for displaced persons in the Solomon Islands.
Further information:
Greg Clewley, ICRC Suva, tel. ++679 330 21 56
Eros Bosisio, ICRC Geneva, ++41 22 730 21 01