In Mitch's wake

Christian Century, Nov 18, 1998

Even before the death toll mounted to staggering totals, U.S. and international faith-based relief organizations were responding to the ravages unleashed across Central America by Hurricane Mitch. Suffering losses at their own already-existing projects, stretched thin by the recent Hurricane Georges disaster and the refugee crisis in Kosovo, and hampered by devastated communications and transportation systems, the groups nevertheless are pouring money, material and personnel into Honduras and Nicaragua. These countries were the hardest hit of the Central American nations battered by the weeklong storm and its aftermath of flooding and mudslides.

The Clinton administration pledged over $100 million in Defense Department equipment and services and in food, fuel and other aid in response to the disaster. The administration response came two days after Honduras's United Nations ambassador, Hugo Noe-Pino, appealed for international aid for the storm-stricken region. Estimating that the storm had destroyed 70 percent of the country's infrastructure and gross domestic products, Noe-Pino said the country's development efforts had been put back at least 30 years. And: "The need for food, medicine, clothes and other basic things is very, very important. The government is at this moment unable by itself to assist all the people."

"The immediate goal is to get food, water and medicine to the affected population," said Rick Jones, Catholic Relief Services program manager for Nicaragua. The death toll in the region remains uncertain, but government and relief officials were estimating that more than 10,000 people had died and over 6,000 more were missing. Relief officials are warning that even more people will die unless workers are able to deliver food, water and medicine promptly.

Aid groups across the theological spectrum are involved in the effort. But they reported that getting access to victims, especially those stranded in remote regions because of destroyed roads and bridges, is extremely difficult. Rescue workers from Lutheran World Relief told of plucking children from the few patches of dry ground remaining after Mitch swept through the region. The group, a joint agency of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the Lutheran Church--Missouri Synod, also reported finding children lashed to tree branches so they would not fall into the flood waters as they slept.

"There is still no access available, and the only way food and supplies are being delivered is by helicopter," said Jones. "It is probably the worst natural disaster in Nicaragua's recorded history." Compounding the problem for groups such as CRS, World Vision and others with longtime development projects in the region is the fact that many projects, which would normally serve as a base of operations for relief efforts, have been destroyed. Communication remains nearly impossible, and some relief organizations remain cut off from communities where they have projects, said World Vision spokesperson Angie Bartel. World Vision, which operates 13 projects--including child sponsorship programs--in Honduras, is committing $5 million to relief efforts.

Other relief groups active in responding to Mitch include Church World Service, the relief arm of the National Council of Churches, which has already donated $40,000 in blanket fund money to the Honduras-based Christian Commission for Development and is joining with Action by Churches Together, the joint World Council of Churches--Lutheran World Federation international aid agency, to raise $250,000 for food, medicine and other relief material.

World Relief, the international assistance arm of the National Association of Evangelicals, is working on, among other things, restoration of clean water to several poor neighborhoods in the town of Ocotal in northern Nicaragua. World Relief staff have purchased enough food to feed about 4,000 people for several weeks in 20 shelters, officials said.

Mercy Corps, an aid agency based in Portland, Oregon, warned that the danger of diseases afflicting survivors is high as a result of the unsanitary conditions that follow such a disaster. "Mercy Corps is collecting funds to purchase water purification tablets and equipment, blankets, medicines, building supplies and vegetable seeds," the organization reported.

Meanwhile, Central American church leaders have appealed to international lenders to forgive the foreign debt of Honduras and Nicaragua. "If we're going to survive and rebuild, we've got to start off with complete forgiveness of the debt," declared Noemi Espinoza, executive president of the Christian Commission for Development in Honduras. "It makes no sense to receive massive amounts of international aid and then turn around and send money out of the country to pay the interest on the debt," Espinoza said. "We want to keep our resources at home to rebuild our country. We still need help from our friends around the world, but we can make our own contribution [to reconstruction]. Canceling the debt will make that possible. Otherwise we'll never recover from the hurricane."