WASHINGTON — Baptist World Aid, the relief and development arm of the Baptist World Alliance (BWA), has sent grants totaling $12,000 for cyclone emergency relief to Bangladesh and India. Cyclone Aila affected southern Bangladesh and eastern India on May 25 and has claimed almost 200 lives, a death toll that is expected to rise as rescuers reach remote villages cut off by flood waters.
“Our team visited the area and found the present need is drinking water and dry food,” said Leor Sarkar, general secretary of the Bangladesh Baptist Fellowship. “All the water wells are under water or are mixed with saline water, and there is no source of sweet water, as the salt water covered the whole area. We’re now distributing drinking water and food to save their lives.” A number of people, he said, are living on boats.
Sarkar, who is a member of the BWA Commission on Church Leadership and the Promotion and Development Committee, informed the BWA that 27 Baptist churches “in Khulna, Bagherhat, Satkhira, Noakhali and Laxmipur districts have been affected by this disaster.”
Some 700 villages in India were affected by the cyclone, destroying 6,000 houses and damaging 8,000 more. “Thousands and thousands of animals died,” said Sapui, who is a member of the BWA General Council and the Christian Education Workgroup. Both agricultural and aquaculture enterprises will be affected for up to a year, he stated.
The same general area was affected by Cyclone Sidr in 2007, killing approximately 3,500 people.
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