23220: (Chamberlain) Red Cross seeks $3.3 million for aid to Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     GENEVA, Sept 22 (Reuters) - The global Red Cross and Red Crescent body
IFRC on Wednesday launched a world-wide appeal for $3.3 million (2.7
million euros) to fund operations bringing relief to 40,000 people in
hurricane and flood-hit Haiti.
     The Geneva-based IFRC -- the International Federation of Red Cross and
Red Crescent Societies -- said the money was needed to help meet an urgent
need for food and drinking water as well as blankets and plastic sheeting
for victims of the disaster.
     But the Federation would also be helping the Haitian Red Cross over
the next six months with food, kitchen equipment, plastic sheeting, jerry
cans, tents, mosquito nets and first aid kits, it said in a statement.
     The floods and mudslides hit the Caribbean nation of some eight
million people in the wake of Tropical Storm Jeanne which at the weekend
swept north of the island of Hispaniola, which Haiti shares with the
Dominican Republic.
     Latest reports say at least 700 people have been killed and at least
1,000 are missing, mainly in and around the swamped coastal town of
Gonaives. Haiti is one of the world's poorest countries, according to the
United Nations.