wfn.org | Church World Service sends $1.2 million in supplies to Iraq

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

July 2, 2003 News media contact: Tim Tanton7(615)742-54707Nashville, Tenn. 
ALL-RM-I{345}

By United Methodist News Service*

Church World Service, the humanitarian agency supported by the United
Methodist Church and many other denominations, is shipping $1.2 million in
donated medical supplies to Iraq.

With the United States focused on law and order and rebuilding efforts,
"Church World Service is keeping front and center the extreme humanitarian
and health conditions that many Iraqi people are still experiencing -
especially the children," said the Rev. John McCullough, executive director
of CWS and a United Methodist. The agency is based in New York.

Steve Weaver, CWS international disaster response consultant, is coordinating
the medical supply shipment to Iraq via Jordan. The Lloyd A. Fry Foundation
donated shipping funds for the supplies, which include surgical kits and
sterile surgical components.

Speaking by phone from Baghdad, Weaver told CWS that humanitarian aid efforts
continue even though the security situation is "not great." Nongovernmental
organizations continue to serve as a lifeline, especially in the health
sector, as the provisional authority struggles to get Iraq's public health
system back up to full capacity.

CWS cited a United Nations report that Iraq's health care system is operating
at no more than half of its capacity and that malnutrition among children has
doubled in some parts of the country since the start of the war. In Baghdad,
acute malnutrition rates had increased to 7.7 percent of children under five,
reflecting an increase from 4 percent before the war.

"There is quite a lot of confusion still," Weaver said. Authorities "are not
sure what medical supplies are in storage, and distribution systems have
broken down."
 
CWS has been addressing humanitarian needs in Iraq for more than a decade.