To help children and families affected by the Kyrgyzstan ethnic violence you can donate to our Children’s Emergency Fund: 

• Donate securely online.
• Download the Kyrgyzstan Emergency Appeal form [Adobe PDF] and post it or fax it to us. Fax: (03) 9938 2088 / Post: Kyrgyzstan Emergency Appeal, Save the Children, Reply Paid 340, Fitzroy VIC 3065.
• Call our toll free number 1800 76 00 11 and donate over the phone.

Save the Children is distributing relief supplies to families caught up in the wave of hostilities in southern Kyrgyzstan. As a result of the stable security situation, more than 42 metric tons of food aid will be delivered this week. So far Save the Children has distributed more than 1,000 hygiene kits to vulnerable families.

Mike Penrose, Save the Children’s Emergency Programs Director, said: “Trucks of aid are arriving and local Kyrgyz are reaching out to those in need, but it is not yet the pipeline of relief required to alleviate this humanitarian crisis.

“The damage is far greater than official estimates. Hundreds of thousands of people are on the move. And children are at risk.”

Ethnic fighting has destroyed parts of the cities of Osh and Jalal-Abad and has driven an estimated 400,000 people from their homes. Some 100,000 of them — primarily children, women and the elderly — are now refugees in neighbouring Uzbekistan.

Additional Save the Children staff deployed from Australia have arrived in the country to support the organisation’s humanitarian relief efforts.

Watch a video update on the Save the Children emergency response in Kyrgyzstan, by Dan Kerr, Emergency Logistics Manager, Save the Children.

Save the Children, which has an office in Osh, reports that staff are accounted for and currently safe, though a number are living behind barricades. Assessment teams are in Osh, Kotgon and Cheremushke.  Our staff report that many men are remaining near their burnt homes, often staying with neighbours.  Women have been sent to Uzbekistan or are staying in mosques or large private houses that have been converted to shelters.

Children do not have established safe areas to be in, or activities to engage in.  Sanitation and health may be increasing problems, as cases of diarrheoa are reported to be on the rise.

Save the Children has been working in the region since 1992.

Read the latest information on the Save the Children Emergency response on our Emergency Updates blog: Voices from the Field. Where Save the Children Country Director, Kyrgyzstan, Will Lynch is regularly writing posts.

Donate now to our Children’s Emergency Fund and help provide emergency relief to the children in Kyrgyzstan.