MERCY MALAYSIA DEPLOYS NEEDS ASSESSMENT TEAM TO SOMALIA

  MERCY MALAYSIA DEPLOYS NEEDS ASSESSMENT TEAM TO SOMALIA
      
      
    KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 26 (Bernama) -- MERCY Malaysia has deployed a needs
assessment team to Mogadishu, Somalia to ascertain medical aid and healthcare
services needed, said its president, Dr Ahmad Faizal Ahmad Perdaus.
    
    The three-member team is led by MERCY Malaysia vice-president Assoc Prof Dr
Mohamed Ikram Mohamed Salleh while two others members are MERCY Malaysia head of
relief operations Hew Cheong Yew and a Somali student, Yasir Mohamed
Ahmed-Baffo, 27, who acts as a translator.
    
    According to the UN Office for the Coordination for Humanitarian Affairs (UN
OCHA), Somalia is plagued by outbreaks of cholera, measles and dengue as well as
malnutrition and diarrhoea, Ahmad Faizal said in a statement, Thursday.
    
    He said the person needs assessment team would be visiting Muslim Aid
projects to determine the aid required.
    
    "This is timely as we had signed an MoU with Muslim Aid in May," he said,
adding that the team would be in constant communication with Muslim Aid on the
situation on the ground.
        
    The MERCY Malaysia person needs assessment team, which left for Bahrain at
7.50pm Thursday night and expected to arrive in Mogadishu tomorrow, will be
succeeded by follow-up teams.
    
    Meanwhile, Ahmad Faizal said 34 Somali students attended an induction course
at the Mercy Malaysia headquarters here yesterday in preparation for the
possibility of engaging them as translators in future missions to Somalia.
    
    The students were acquainted with the code of conduct for International Red
Cross and Red Crescent Movement, and NGOs in disaster relief which outlines core
humanitarian principles required for humanitarian response and development
works, he added.
    
    According to the UN OCHA, about 470,000 people are taking refuge in over 100
camps scattered around the city.
    
    -- BERNAMA