RED CROSS STEPS UP RELIEF IN BAWKU (D/G Friday July 11 2008 PAGE 45)

THE Ghana Red Cross Society will from today begin distributing food items worth GH¢140,000 to 1,000 vulnerable families in the Bawku Municipality in the Upper East Region.The beneficiaries include persons who have been displaced by the recent conflict in Bawku and its surrounding communities.Truckloads of relief items, made up of mostly food items, which arrived in the Upper East Region yesterday, are expected to be distributed over a five-day period.The items include a total of 60 tonnes of maize, 20 tonnes of beans, one tonne of iodised salt and 20,000 litres of palm oil.At a brief ceremony at Bolgatanga, the Secretary General of the Ghana Red Cross Society, Mr Andrews Frimpong, said the society was supported by the International Committee of the Red Cross, and expressed the hope that distribution of the items would be smooth for the benefit of all.Mr Frimpong expressed the society’s appreciation to the International Committee of the Red Cross for reaching out to the vulnerable.He recalled a similar intervention after last year’s floods, and said the latest donation would go a long way to ameliorate the suffering of the people.The Bawku Municipality has since January this year experienced ethnic conflict, which had led to the loss of lives and property, as well as many people being displaced.Most people who could not bear the twinge of the conflict have fled the area to other parts of the country as well as neighbouring Togo and Burkina Faso.Present at the function was the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Burkina Faso, Mr Moussa Ouattara, as well as officials of the Red Cross in the Upper East Region