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Save the Children Assists 165,000 Children, Families Following Floods in Aceh, Indonesia
Westport, Conn. (January 12, 2007 ––) Save the Children continues to provide assistance to over 165,000 children and family members in communities still recovering from the torrential rains that flooded villages in Aceh province and North Sumatra, Indonesia, in late December 2006.
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Save the Children workers are distributing critical emergency supplies including rice, vegetable oil, and bottled water to families forced from their homes due to recent floods in Aceh province,Indonesia. |
The heavy rains and severe floods claimed at least 60 lives and forced more than 400,000 people to seek higher ground in what has become the latest catastrophe to strike a region of Indonesia devastated by the tsunami of December 26, 2004, one of worst natural disasters in modern history.
Save the Children staff members have distributed thousands of bottles of water and packets of noodles to displaced families while also offering medical assistance to over 1,200 children and families at various mobile clinics set up in response to the disaster. Staff members have distributed more than 5,000 hygiene kits, 1,425 household kits and 41 metric tons of rice.
Having run programs for children in northern Sumatra for more than 30 years, Save the Children currently has operations in many areas of the region including Banda Aceh, Medan, Lhokeseumawi and Langkat. In the next several weeks, the agency will focus its efforts on meeting basic needs of displaced families while also working to help children cope with the disaster.
"We are coordinating with government officials, community leaders and local partners to assist displaced families and children in need," said Rudy Von Bernuth, who heads Save the Children’s international response efforts. "We already have contacted the World Food Program to help coordinate the distribution of rice, water, noodles, biscuits and other food items."
"Many families affected by the floods lost loved ones and livelihoods due to the tsunami of two years ago," Von Bernuth added. "We want to do all we can to help children and families recover from this latest disaster."
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