Caritas Lebanon Migrant Center employee Mya Ziadeh with a child at Saloum border crossing between Libya and Egypt. Credit: Donal Reilly
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By Lesley-Anne Knight, Secretary General of Caritas Internationalis
The headlines have been dominated by the conflicts in Libya and across the Middle East, a descent into civil war in Cote D’Ivoire and the terrible earthquake and tsunami disaster in Japan.
Caritas has sent two Emergency Response Teams to the Libyan-Egyptian and the Libyan-Tunisian borders and is providing emergency aid such as food, health care and counselling to thousands of stranded migrants.
I have visited Caritas Japan, and know it’s wonderful work. So I know the resilience and courage they will have as they respond to a 9.0 magnitude earthquake off the northern coast of Japan on 11th March 2011. Caritas has been giving out blankets and supporting parishes in providing food.
Hundreds of thousands of Ivoirians have already fled their homes to escape the violent post-election clashes in Côte d’Ivoire. Caritas is providing food, health care, sanitation and more to thousands of displaced people inside Côte d’Ivoire and in nearby Liberia. Continue reading
