Red Cross raises record $1.2 bln in tsunami aid

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The Red Cross federation, the world’s biggest humanitarian group, said on Wednesday it had raised a record $1.167 billion in just 30 days for victims of the Asian tsunami, enough to fund a 10-year recovery plan.

Some 85 percent came from donations by the general public, a testament to the “power of humanity”, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said in a statement. The Geneva-based body’s 181 national societies will now wind down fundraising.

"It is a record. We have never raised this much money before for an appeal,” Federation spokesman Roy Probert told AMN Health.

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said it would also end its appeal for tsunami donations, having raised $300 million following an appeal for $144 million.

“We have stopped new initiatives for fundraising,” Daniel Toole, director of UNICEF’s office of emergency programmes, told Reuters on Wednesday. “We have enough to respond to immediate needs and believe we have enough to start rehabilitation.”

Toole said UNICEF had also raised more money in a short time than ever before. “I think it demonstrates that this kind of crisis is so random and apolitical that everybody realises ‘it could have been me’,” he added.

Giant waves triggered by an earthquake in the Indian Ocean on Dec. 26 left nearly 300,000 people dead or missing in countries from Thailand to Somalia, with Indonesia’s Aceh province the worst affected.

EMERGENCY RELIEF

Red Cross and Red Crescent societies are providing aid, including food, clean water and health care, to more than 500,000 people, “survivors of the worst natural catastrophe in living memory”, the Federation said.

More than 9,000 volunteers and nearly 300 international staff are deployed in the effort, which includes assessing damage and drawing up emergency relief and long-term recovery plans to be completed by mid-February.

“We now have enough funding to plan our response and recovery programme for the next 10 years,” said Federation Secretary-General Markku Niskala.

“We have all been overwhelmed by the support, and my dream is that a similar level of support continues in the months and years to come, as we have so many problems to deal with around the world.”

Earlier this month, French charity Medecins Sans Frontiers (Doctors Without Borders), said it would close its tsunami appeal, which had raised enough.

Governments, aid groups and private donors have pledged more than $7 billion so far in tsunami aid, but it could take months or years before much of the money materialises. 

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