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5
January 2005
UNHCR
London Tsunami aid update
Four UNHCR-chartered aid flights reached Jakarta
today carrying relief items from stockpiles in Denmark and Dubai,
including 2,000 tents, 20,000 jerry cans, 20,000 kitchen sets, 100,000
blankets, thousands of plastic tarpaulins and telecoms equipment.
The items will be flown to Banda Aceh and Medan on Sumatra in the
next few days.
The fifth UN refugee agency flight is due to reach
Jakarta on Thursday from Frankfurt with more blankets, office and
field kits and telecoms equipment. By Thursday, UNHCR will have
shifted some 20,000 jerry cans, 20,000 kitchen sets, 20,000 plastic
sheets, 100,010 blankets and 2,000 tents for the tsunami victims
as part of the refugee agency's unprecedented response to a natural
disaster;
A second
airlift carrying items to Sri Lanka is expected to start at the
weekend. UNHCR initially plans to send an additional 20,000 plastic
tarpaulins and five pre-fabricated warehouses into Sri Lanka, with
20,000 cooking sets to be dispatched shortly thereafter. In Sri
Lanka, the UN refugee agency has already distributed items to more
than 20,000 families (100,000 people) since 27 December. UNHCR is
the UN's largest operational agency in Sri Lanka with more than
20 years of experience aiding returnees displaced by the country's
war.
Initial
estimates are that some 800,000 people have been affected by the
tsunami in Sri Lanka, while some 500,000 people are displaced in
Aceh.
The
UN refugee agency and the World Food Programme (UN WFP) plan an
assessment mission along Aceh's west coast on Thursday, the mission,
originally planned for today, had to be postponed due to high-profile
government delegations visiting Banda Aceh's airfield.
UNHCR
plans a six-month, multi-million dollar emergency relief operation
targeting tsunami victims in the Indonesian province of Aceh and
in Sri Lanka. The Canadian government has suspended returns of rejected
asylum seekers to tsunami-affected areas, while the Malaysian government
has initially agreed to postpone returns of Indonesian ethnic Acehnese
for one month.
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