RCA provides water, medicine for refugees on Uzbek-Kyrgyz border

Abu Dhabi, June 23, 2010 (WAM)- The UAE's Red Crescent Authority (RCA) has procured medicines worth US$120000 for Uzbekistan's Ministry of Health and Red Crescent to help refugees who escaped violence in the country over the past week.
A team from RCA, already in Uzbekistan upon orders from H.H Sheikh Hamdan bin Zayed, the Ruler's Representative in the Western Region ''&'' Chairman of (RCA), has also contracted with a local Uzbek company to provide drinking water for 7 refugee camps for 3 months.
Sheikh Hamdan is closely following up on the humanitarian situation at the Kyrgyz-Uzbek border where around 400000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) live now in makeshift camps.
The RCA delegation, accompanied by the Uzbek Minister of Public Health Adham Ikromov and the chairman of the Uzbek Red Crescent, toured the border refugee camps to assess the humanitarian situation and determine the urgently needed aid which include food, medicine, hygiene supplies for women and children and drinking water.
Refugee women and children in particular live now in dire unhygienic conditions in the camps on the Kyrgyz-Uzbek border.
Later Tuesday, the RCA team is holding talks with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to consider aid from the UAE's Sheikha Fatima Bint Mubarak Fund for Refugee Women. Medical supplies and clothes will be airlifted to Uzbekistan via the office of the Dubai-based Bureau Of Supplies of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and RCA's Dubai branch. – Emirates News Agency, WAM