2.18.2005 ET

(CSRwire) A Russian-built IL-76 cargo transport carrying 79,400 pounds of medical supplies and food for the refugees and children of strife-torn Afghanistan left Belgium today in an AmeriCares relief initiative.

The airlift from the airport at Ostend was organized after a careful assessment by the Connecticut-based humanitarian organization to establish urgent needs and develop a platform for delivering additional aid to a Texas-sized nation devastated by 23 years of conflict and where the life expectancy of nearly 27 million people is less than 47 years.

Assembled from U.S. donors, the supplies range from basic antibiotics, analgesics and bandages to nutritional supplements, flour and cooking oil.

Dr. Stephen Winter, a volunteer affiliated with Norwalk Hospital in Connecticut and the Yale Medical School, was aboard the flight to work with the advance AmeriCares team in Afghanistan where the organization has been providing humanitarian aid since 1986.

Rachel Granger, the operational executive in charge of the mission, said: "Our people on the ground are there to make sure the entire consignment goes to the people who desperately need the relief. Wherever we go, it's our policy to monitor the distribution of all of our shipments so nothing is diverted from where it is supposed to go."

In Kabul, the mission is working with a nine-year-old organization called Help The Afghan Children, which has offices in Vienna, Va. and delivers health, education and emergency services at clinics, schools and orphanages in and around the capital.

The need in Afghanistan was affirmed by a congressional delegation which reported that at one typical hospital in Kabul there was no medicine, food was scarce and one out of three children did not survive the night. In the group were Frank Wolf (R-Va), Tony Hall (D-Ohio) and Joe Pitts (R-Pa). Afghanistan's Interim president, Hamid Karzai, underlined the urgency in a face-to-face appeal to the congressmen.

Since it was established in 1982, AmeriCares has provided crisis relief after emergencies arising from such disasters as floods in the U.S., massive refugee displacements in Rwanda, famine in Ethiopia, radioactive fallout in Chernobyl, earthquakes in Turkey and cyclones in Madagascar. Hundreds of thousands of people in 137 countries have been given medical treatment and aid in putting their lives back together.

In the U.S., AmeriCares runs a summer camp for disadvantaged youngsters with severe medical conditions, three free healthcare clinics and a refurbishing blitz for the elderly in need of home repairs.

AmeriCares is the non-profit international disaster relief and humanitarian aid organization which provides immediate response to emergency medical needs and supports long-term healthcare programs for people around the world.

For more information please contact: