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Badawi (L) and the IDB president said a task force agreed on ways to provide relief and care for the tsunami children.
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Jeddah,
February 21, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agency) - The
Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) and Islamic Development
Bank (IDB) have jointly created a special fund to help children
orphaned by the killer tsunami.
The
Organization of the Islamic Conference Alliance for Tsunami Child
Victims is expected to provide some 35,000 disaster victims on the
Indonesian island of Sumatra with much needed financial aid, reported
the Saudi Press Agency (SPA).
The
fund will coordinate the efforts of the two Islamic bodies and their
member countries in catering for the welfare of the children,
including placing them with interested Muslim families in the Muslim
world, said the International Islamic News Agency (IINA).
Indonesia,
the world's most populous Muslim country, said Sunday the number of
people dead or missing after the December 26 tsunami had went up to
236,002.
The
government estimated that 35,000 children have been made homeless,
orphaned or separated from their parents in Aceh, where Muslims make
up 98 percent of the population.
Recent
reports indicated that orphans were falling prey to mounting
missionary activities in tsunami-hit areas.
The
Washington Post reported Thursday,
January 13, that a US missionary group was planning to Christianize
300 Muslim children from Aceh.
Immediately
after the tidal waves devastated several countries, a number of
Christian missionary groups rushed in to offer not only relief aid,
but more importantly spiritual
counselling .
Gospel
for Asia, a group seeking to train and send 100,000 native
missionaries into the most unreached areas of Asia, was working around
the clock to bring food, clean water, medicines, clothing, shelter,
and spiritual counselling “in the name of Jesus” to those who lost
everything in the killer tidal waves.
Intensive
Efforts
According
to a statement issued on behalf of Malaysian Prime Minister Ahmad
Badawi, current chairs of the OIC, and IDB President Ahmad Mohamed
Ali, a joint task force has finished considering ways of providing
relief and care for these children.
Badawi
said OIC member countries immediately responded after the tsunami
struck South East Asian countries, Bernama news agency reported.
He
explained that several countries, such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey,
Iran, Pakistan and Malaysia, did not respond through the OIC.
They
joined the other countries in contributing to the United
Nations-sponsored relief organisations.
Meanwhile,
OIC Secretary General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu briefed Badawi on the
recent activities of the OIC Task Force for the tsunami child victims,
including preparations for a fund-raising meeting of leading
charitable organizations, to be hosted by Jeddah on February 28.
The
IDB’s International Center for Biosaline Agriculture, which is based
in Dubai, will also launch an environmental project designed to revive
plant life along the disaster-stricken coastlines.
The
IDB had allocated some US$500 million in assistance to tsunami victims
in Indonesia, the Maldives, Somalia, Thailand, India and Sri Lanka.
The
money will be spent on relief and reconstruction, particularly in
sectors such as education, health, water supply, energy and transport.
Leading
Muslim organizations in North America and Britain have launched online
donations and appeals to people worldwide to immediately send
contributions, raising millions of US dollars and sterling pounds.
Muslims
in the Gulf region have also donated generously.
A
telethon in Saudi Arabia has raised more than 82 million dollars,
drawing donations of cash, tents and blankets, even diamonds.
