AmeriCares Helps North Korea from Worst Drought in 80 years

AmeriCares Foundation
Monday, 6 August 2001

New Canaan, CT (August 6, 2001) – AmeriCares, the international disaster relief and humanitarian aid organization, announced that it has airlifted nearly $1.5 million worth of relief supplies to P'yongyang, North Korea. The humanitarian cargo, which arrived on Friday, July 28, consisted of over 7 tons of antibiotics, pre-natal vitamins, and other nutritional supplements to aid the victims of this horrendous drought.

AmeriCares Project Director, Aimee Gilbert, is working with local agencies in North Korea to distribute the emergency supplies to P'yongyang University Hospital, P'yongyang Maternity Hospital, South Pyongsan Province's Regional Pediatric Hospital and other medical facilities that are serving the afflicted population.

"AmeriCares will provide victims in North Korea with the medical attention and support system they desperately need," said Robert C. Macauley, Founder and Chairman of AmeriCares. "AmeriCares has been working in North Korea since 1997 on various projects to assist the victims of famine, and we remain committed to aiding the people of this region."

Several years of alternating floods and drought have brought famine conditions to the 20 million people in the People's Democratic Republic of Korea. Malnutrition and related diseases have claimed over 1 million lives since food shortages, blamed on drought, started in 1994. This year alone, North Korea has received only 11 percent of its average rainfall for the March-June period. AmeriCares, along with over 100 other humanitarian organizations, continues to respond to the medical and nutritional needs of the famine-stricken people of North Korea.

AmeriCares quickly responded to the first appeal for assistance in 1997 by sending three airlifts of more than $20 million worth of nutritionals, medicines and medical supplies. The initial airlift was the first direct civilian flight from the U.S. to the D.P.R.K. since before the Korean War.

For more information, or to contact AmeriCares Foundation, see their website at: www.americares.org