NEWS FROM
LUTHERAN WORLD RELIEF
October 8, 2001
For more information contact Jonathan Frerichs at (410) 230-2802.
In this news release:
- 10,000 Quilts from Lutheran World Relief's Maryland Warehouse en Route to Afghan Refugees Today
10,000 QUILTS FROM LUTHERAN WORLD RELIEF'S MARYLAND WAREHOUSE EN ROUTE TO AFGHAN REFUGEES TODAY
Baltimore, October 8, 2001 - 10,000 quilts for Afghan refugees began their long journey to Central Asia today. The $136,500 shipment by Baltimore-based Lutheran World Relief and the Mennonite Central Committee of Akron, Pennsylvania, was loaded at a warehouse in Pennsylvania today.
The container of comforters, which are handmade in U.S. parishes, is to arrive in refugee camps near the Afghanistan - Iran border before the onset of winter. They will be shared among some 125,000 refugees there. Local groups on the receiving end also have the capacity to reach displaced people inside Afghanistan, where needs for food and warmth are increasingly acute.
A humanitarian crisis that the United Nations calls "of stunning proportions" has been building inside Afghanistan for much of this year. In the weeks since the September 11 terror attacks in the U.S., unknown numbers of Afghanistan’s civilians have been seeking safety in rural areas or heading for camps in Pakistan and Iran where more than three million Afghan refugees already live. Before the current crisis, Afghanistan had suffered nearly four years of drought and 20 years of war.
Lutheran World Relief is also helping to provide water systems and shelter that will be needed for tens of thousands of refugees expected in Pakistan, and is planning further aid.
The quilts for Afghanistan were packed at a warehouse in New Windsor, Maryland, from which LWR ships up to 300,000 quilts each year, plus hundreds of tons of clothing, health kits and school kits, to refugees and disaster survivors in 20 countries.
Read the current LWR Afghanistan Fact Sheet.
