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Monday, March 24, 2003

By Sally Kalson, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

As the bombs dropped in Baghdad, volunteers sat on the floor of a Sewickley warehouse counting sterile bandages. All around them were floor-to-ceiling shelves loaded with boxes of supplies, already labeled and shrink-wrapped, containing winter jackets, summer clothing, blankets, diapers, personal care items, knee braces, wheelchairs and more.

	Joy Haynes of Portland, Ore., and Oliver Blackstock of Squirrel Hill join other volunteers in Sewickley to pack boxes of medical supplies to be sent to Iraq. World Vision of Sewickley is coordinating efforts to send medical supplies, clothing and toys to those affected by the war. (John Beale, Post-Gazette)

Everything is brand new, from the school kits of paper and crayons to the palettes of Sam & Libby shoes. Almost all of it is headed for a refugee camp near Ruwayshid in northeastern Jordan set up to house an expected influx of 50,000 Iraqi war refugees.

The warehouse is the international distribution center of World Vision U.S., the American arm of one of the largest privately funded Christian relief and development organizations.

"Our goal is to put 12 to 15 shipping containers on the high seas over the next six weeks," said Dean Salisbury, operations manager for gifts in kind at World Vision U.S.

"We're also looking for seven ambulances for eventual use in Baghdad [when the war is over], so if you know anybody who has any to spare ..."

The Sewickley operation has a staff of 14 and an army of 3,000 volunteers. Most are from churches in the region, although the 19 people sorting medical supplies Friday were from Pittsburgh Health Corps, part of the Americorps program. More workers, a group of home schoolers from Moon, were to arrive later in the day.

The first shipment, a container of winter coats, should leave the warehouse today and arrive about a month later in the Jordanian port of Aqaba, Salisbury said. From there it will be transported overland to the camp, near the Iraqi border.

The refugee camp was set up by the Jordanian government with help from World Vision. The organization's workers inside the camp send wish lists to their affiliates in Canada, Australia, Germany, England and New Zealand as well as the United States, and staff and volunteers do their best to supply the items.

In addition, the organization will donate $30,000 for food and kitchen supplies at a second Jordanian camp nearby, set up by the Jordan Evangelical Committee for Relief and Development, an alliance of churches and private groups.

The second camp is for "third-country" refugees -- mostly male day laborers from Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Sri Lanka fleeing their jobs in Iraq. The United Nations expects about 60,000 of them to arrive at the camp over the next three weeks. Most will stay only a few days before returning to their countries of origin until the war is over and it's safe to go back to work.

According to InterAction, a coalition of more than 160 U.S.-based private relief organizations, the humanitarian situation in Iraq has deteriorated substantially since the 1991 Gulf War. International sanctions against the Iraqi regime have led to the collapse of the economy and more than half of the country's population is dependent on food rations distributed by the government under the United Nations Oil-for-Food program.

InterAction estimates that the war could displace 2 million Iraqis internally, on top of the million who are already without homes. As many as 1.5 million refugees could flee to neighboring nations, and 10 million Iraqis, or 40 percent of the population, may need immediate food aid. About half of them will be children younger than 5 and childbearing women. The cost of humanitarian assistance for the first six months could run as high as $800 million.

Humanitarian groups have been preparing to respond. Among them is Brother's Brother, a Pittsburgh-based nonprofit that has shipped relief supplies to Iraq in recent years. Last week, the group got an invitation to attend a meeting on Wednesday at the Pentagon to discuss emergency relief plans with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

About 25 private organizations have been invited, said Karen Linsie, director of development for Brother's Brother, who will represent the group. "It's unusual for the Pentagon to call a meeting like this, but this is an unusual situation," said Linsie.

The World Vision warehouse here has 41,000 square feet, filled mostly with supplies donated by corporations looking to put their overstock or out-of-fashion items to good use.

Some clothing, like the bin of sweatshirts with the Adidas logo, are confiscated forgeries that would have wound up as landfill. Four truck-loads of medical supplies came from the U.S. Olympic Committee, which assembled them in case of terrorist attacks at the winter games in Salt Lake City.

Salisbury, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel, said the Christian organization is sensitive to the other religions of the populations they seek to help.

"We make Christian materials available to those who are interested, but we do not proselytize," he said. "Our Christian witness takes the form of doing Christ's work."