Bangladesh has been devastated by a cyclone – an estimated six million people have been affected and many have lost their loved ones, homes and livelihoods.
While much needed aid is arriving, people require long-term support to help rebuild their lives.
Small packages, big benefits
Fahima and her family live in Pirojpur, one of the districts worst affected by the recent cyclone. Her home was badly damaged in the storm and the family lost all their possessions. They were without food, clothes and cooking utensils.
Aid was slow to trickle in but on Sunday a little hope arrived in the form of emergency relief packages distributed by Christian Aid partner Ubinig.
Fahima received 5kg of rice, 1kg of lentils, 1/2kg of salt, alum (a mineral used in cooking), water purification tablets and oral rehydration packets.
This food relief is vital and will last the family for up to four days. As Fahima says, ‘Without today’s support, my family would have gone hungry.’
And it’s not just about delivering food. The mineral and water purification tablets will help prevent the spread of waterborne disease and protect the family against illness.
Medicinal value
While food relief is at last reaching families like Fahima’s, medical relief is also getting through to the thousands that were injured or have become sick due to increasingly unhealthy water supplies.
Gonoshasthaya Kendra (GK), another local partner organisation, has sent 10 medical teams to treat around 50,000 sick and injured people in the worst affected areas thanks to the emergency funds sent by Christian Aid. Each day they treat around 300 patients.
Shalina is eight months pregnant and now has dysentery. Cases of diarrhoea and dysentery are increasing each day due to the loss of safe water in her village, Mudbaria in Pirojpur.
Almost all of her village was destroyed after a tidal surge, caused by the cyclone, crashed over it. Some villagers were washed almost two kilometres inland.
‘We were all adrift in the water. A labourer miraculously caught my children and brought them to safety in a tree,’ says Shalina.
‘We only had raw coconuts to eat in the first few days until some aid arrived. And I have been drinking water from some of the less contaminated ponds.
‘The other ponds are totally contaminated from trees falling into them and human and animal carcasses. They are not even fit for washing your hands.’
GK’s medical team has given Shalina the medicine that she needs and vitamins to ensure her unborn baby is healthy.
What you can do
The cyclone shelters that were built as a result of money raised from our last Bangladesh cyclone appeal saved lives.
Funds raised from our current emergency appeal are already helping to provide food and medicine but money is needed to help rebuild people’s lives.