Interact AMA
Kashmir - Mules transport Shelterboxes - Oct 2005
Shelterboxes are self contained, portable disaster survivor ‘kits’ developed by a
Rotary club in the UK. Boxes are packed ‘disaster-specific’ and can contain such
items as a 10-person tent, cooking/eating utensils, cook burner, hand tools &
emergency water purification, plus more. A Shelterbox is sponsored by an individual,
group or organization for $900, including transportation, worldwide. Boxes are deployed
for natural disaster responses almost immediately upon request. This includes such recent
disasters such as the Indian tsunami (11,500 Boxes); Hurricane Katrina (1200 Boxes);
Kashmir Mt. earthquake in Pakistan (where the Boxes were transported up impassable
mountain roads by mules).
Humanitarian relief is also ongoing in Africa to shelter homeless and displaced victims
of civil war (Somalia) and genocidal terrorists (Sudan). Shelterbox has partnered with
the United Nations to provide over 1000 units for established camps already towards
their goal to shelter one million African refugees.
Almost simultaneously, two different UN agencies working in Africa have requested
large quantities of additional Shelterboxes.
Somalia - Improvised twig shelters - August 2006
SOMALIA – Since numerous international aid agencies have withdrawn from the
war-wrecked country, there is very little help reaching those Somalis who fled
their homes during the 15 years of civil war. The UNICEF camps are located in
the south of the country and around Mogadishu where most of the IDP (internally
displaced people) have been living in extremely squalid conditions. Some camp
children have known no other life. Refugee camp shelter is ‘cobbled together with
sticks and whatever fabric scraps come to hand’. REQUESTED: 10,000 Units
SUDAN - UNHCR (United Nations Higher Commission for Refugees) generated the second
request for Box units to be deployed to Sudan as part of a complex repatriation plan
aimed at returning Sudanese refugees to their homeland. Many refugees now living the
Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda, have expressed renewed interest in returning home
after their protracted exile. Shelterbox tent way-stations are to be established to
provide rest camps as the refugees walk hundreds of miles home..
Their situation is complicated by the fact that there are 1.7 million (IDP) from
northern Sudan who fled drought and armed conflicts south to occupy the abandoned
land of the southern Sudanese who now want to return. The IDP must be relocated back
north before the exiled refugees can reclaim their land.