UNICEF AID FLIGHTS LEAVE FOR DISASTER ZONE
(29 December 2004)

A UNICEF-chartered plane carrying essential aid supplies for children and families affected by the quake disaster is scheduled to arrive in Sri Lanka on Thursday morning. The cargo plane, which left Copenhagen on Tuesday night and is scheduled to reach Sri Lanka on Thursday morning, is carrying 15 emergency health kits (containing medicines, medical supplies and basic medical equipment to cover the health needs of 150,000 people for three months), 150,000 sachets of oral rehydration salts to combat diarrhoea, and 20 tents.

School-in-a-box kits (containing education materials for 8,000 pupils and their teachers) and recreation kits are also included in the shipment, to help ensure that children can return to their studies as quickly as possible and regain a sense of normality. Another flight to Sri Lanka, containing 20 tonnes of tarpaulins and tents, arrived in Colombo today.

When news of the disaster emerged, UNICEF staff in the countries most affected by the tsunamis, together with Supply Division in Copenhagen, identified the aid that is most urgently needed. UNICEF’s head of warehouse and logistics operations in Copenhagen, Søren Hansen, said: “We are on call 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, to start packing and shipping essential supplies for an emergency in the initial critical hours. Ten additional staff worked late into the evening yesterday, packing the items ready for despatch today.”

Four emergency health kits were shipped on a commercial Thai Airways flight on Wednesday from Copenhagen to Indonesia and are scheduled to arrive on Thursday.

UNICEF has developed a list of standard items that can be used in various types of emergency, so that not a minute is wasted following a disaster. With many years of experience working with children and women in crisis, UNICEF has a great deal of expertise in supplying emergency aid.

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