Two-year old boy, Abdulrahman is among the more than 200,000 internally displaced persons affected by the conflict in Marawi City. His family evacuated in the municipal hall of Saguiaran town in Lanao del Sur province. (Zea Io Ming C. Capistrano/davaotoday.com)
DAVAO CITY, Philippines—The Philippines Catholic Church is rolling out a a P10-million humanitarian response to the families affected by the ongoing crisis in Marawi.
In a statement on Tuesday, National Secretariat for Social Action/Caritas Philippines Executive Secretary Fr. Edwin Gariguez said the humanitarian response will benefit 3,000 families or 15,000 individuals in Iligan City.
Gariguez said the project will provide Halal food, and non-food items like hygiene kits, household items and sleeping kits to the Marawi evacuees.
Apart from these, humanitarian, development, and advocacy arm of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) will also conduct psychosocial activities, hygiene promotion awareness, emergency preparedness, and accountability trainings.
“We are targeting the home-based evacuees or those staying in their relatives’ houses because our assessment showed that many were still underserved. The concentration of the responses by other organizations are mostly in the evacuation centers,” Gariguez said.
Earlier, the Catholic Church’s social action arm launched a solidarity appeal to all 85 dioceses nationwide. Caritas Manila also allocated P2-million relief assistance to those affected by the crisis in Marawi through the Diocese of Iligan Social Action Center.
Meanwhile, a total of 102,860 families or 465,674 individuals were displaced by the armed conflict in Marawi, according to the latest data from the Office of the Civil Defense-National Emergency Operations Center.
Of these, 4,977 families or 27,0004 individuals are staying in 85 evacuation centers while 97,883 families or 438,685 persons are home-based or staying with their relatives in eight regions.
The humanitarian response covers 12 communities in Iligan City being implemented through the newly-formed operations group comprising of religious sisters and lay volunteers of the Diocese of Iligan. (davaotoday.com)
