UNICEF Serbia office calls for donations and solidarity with children and families in Haiti
Belgrade, 15 January 2010; - UNICEF Serbia office calls for donations and solidarity with children and families in Haiti through bank account no. 908-20501-70, reference no: 400702-0070200003240.
UNICEF is part of a massive international relief effort now under way to assist up to 3.5 million people affected by Tuesday’s 7.2-magnitude earthquake in Haiti. But while essential supplies from UNICEF, its UN partners and other humanitarian agencies have started arriving in quake-shattered communities, the survivors’ dire needs severely outpace available resources on the ground. Overall casualty estimates in Haiti are high, as search and rescue teams comb the rubble for survivors.
And the number of deaths is likely to increase without more medical aid, food, safe water, sanitation supplies and shelter materials. UNICEF has released a total of $3.4 million in emergency funding for Haitian quake relief, while the United Nations as a whole has released $10 million from its Central Emergency Response Fund. Even more funding will be needed for relief and recovery in the coming days and weeks, however.
In a commentary posted today by CNN International, UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Mia Farrow addressed the funding issue. She urged her fellow citizens to give generously in support of the quake response, with a focus on children, who comprise nearly half of Haiti’s population of 10 million.
“In any disaster, children are the most vulnerable,” wrote Ms. Farrow, who visited Haiti for UNICEF during the catastrophic 2008 hurricane season there. “We have the power to ensure that this particularly merciless act of nature does not steal any more than it already has from children whose lives were so precarious to begin with.”
