wfn.org | Church agency approves $800,000 for Kosovo

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

April 22, 1999	News media contact: Linda Bloom*(212) 870-3803*New York
10-21-71B{217}

NOTE: This report may be used with UMNS stories #216 and #218.

STAMFORD, Conn. (UMNS) -- Directors of the United Methodist Board of Global
Ministries voted April 22 to release $800,000 for the Kosovo refugee crisis.

The money comes from the International Disaster Response account of the
United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR), which is a part of the board.

Of that amount, $100,000 will be sent to Action By Churches Together (ACT)
-- an ecumenical group of which UMCOR is a part - for use by the Macedonian
Center for International Cooperation in Macedonia and Diaconia Agape in
Albania, also ecumenical relief agency partners. Another $100,000 will go to
United Methodist Bishop Heinrich Bolleter in Switzerland for use by United
Methodists in Macedonia for immediate humanitarian relief.

For material assistance, $50,000 will be used to gather bulk material relief
supplies at the UMCOR Depot in Louisiana. An additional $50,000 will be
allotted for materials and shipping costs of health kits, hygiene kits and
medicine boxes.

The remaining half a million dollars will be divided between ACT and
Bolleter when further appeals for humanitarian relief are received from
them. Part of the funding may be used to aid women who were terrorized
through sexual assault "as part of Serbian attempts at 'ethnic cleansing.'"

UMCOR already had given an initial grant of $100,000 to ACT for its relief
work in Macedonia and Albania. It also has disbursed $20,000 to the UMCOR
Bosnia office to allow assistance for Kosovar refugees who could be reached
by the Bosnia staff and to help supply a special assessment team in
Macedonia. UMCOR staff in Bosnia also have received assistance in these
efforts from their counterparts in the British Methodist Church.

In a resolution on the Kosovo conflict, directors of the agency also urged
an immediate halt to the "terrible atrocities directed at the people of
Kosovo stop" and to the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia. The directors called for
just solutions to the crisis through negotiations led by the United Nations.
Those solutions should include allowing relief organizations access to
refugees from and within Kosovo, and effecting the return of the refugees to
their homes in the province, the board said.

The United Methodist Church has 13 to 14 congregations in the Vojvodina
region of Yugoslavia, 11 in Macedonia, three in Kosovo and one in Albania. 

United Methodists can support the efforts of UMCOR and the Board of Global
Ministries by making contributions to UMCOR's International Disaster
Response No. 982450-8. Checks, earmarked for "Kosovo Emergency," may be
placed in church collection plates or mailed directly to UMCOR at 475
Riverside Dr., Room 330, New York, NY 10115.

UMCOR also needs donations of health kits and medicine boxes. For
information, call the UMCOR Depot at (800) 814-8765.

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