The Church is providing blankets, clothing and medical supplies for refugees in the Middle East, reported Isaac "Ike" Ferguson, director of Church Humanitarian Services.

Some 13,000 blankets provided by the Church and designated for Kurdish refugees were flown by the U.S. Defense Department to Turkey during the week of April 14. In addition, the Church has 80,000 pounds of used clothing awaiting final clearance for shipment and has made $100,000 available for medical supplies.The supplies are intended for Kurdish refugees on the Turkish and Iranian borders and for other refugees in southern Iraq, as well as for Iraqi hospitals and clinics. These supplies will be made available to the American Red Cross, Turkish Red Crescent Society, Iranian Red Crescent Society and World Vision.

"We established contacts with most of the major relief organizations when the conflict in Iraq began and have maintained them on an ongoing basis," Brother Ferguson explained. "We have had a difficult time trying to get to a point of feeling that there was enough order in the situation that we could actually make a meaningful contribution.

"One of the things that many people don't realize is that in these kinds of chaotic situations, it takes time for even the best of the relief organizations to get in, make a general assessment of what is happening and what the needs are, and then begin to implement a means of assisting. It was only this past week that we felt things were beginning to come to some kind of clarity so that we were assured the assistance would reach those in need. Some early relief efforts had difficulty getting to the needy in spite of corageous efforts by several agencies."

Brother Ferguson said many of the Kurdish refugees can only be reached with supplies through the air, and logistics of getting supplies where they are most needed is worked out through the Department of Defense. He said that blankets were one of the highest priority items on the "needs list" of most of the relief agencies.

Most food for the relief effort is being provided by other agencies, he added. The military is providing hundreds of thousands of dehydrated-prepared meals that are being air dropped along with pure water.

"The refugees are getting prepared, well-balanced, nutritional meals, so we decided to focus on the medical supply issue and the clothing," Brother Ferguson said. "The winter clothing will be made available on a first priority basis to the Kurdish refugees because of their being up in the higher elevations where it's still cold. Of course, we have clothing available for other areas if it's needed."