FROM THE FIELD
A British Red Cross logistics team is working in Kenya where severe flooding has displaced thousands of people.More than 720,000 people have been affected in different parts of the country and about 60,000 people have been displaced in the coastal, western and eastern provinces of Kenya. At least 114 people have died. The four-person logistics team, led by Peter Pearce, flew to Nairobi at the start of December at the request of the Kenyan Red Cross and are based at Garissa town in east Kenya.The team consists of John Cunningham, British Red Cross warehouse manager in Warmley, Bristol, David Stevens who lives in Bangor, north Wales and Kristina Flegg from London.This is Kristina's first mission with the emergency response unit (ERU)."I'm a bit apprehensive but I'm with the best logistics team there is," she said.Her three colleagues have vast experience of emergencies ranging from earthquakes to conflicts.Team leader, Peter Pearce has a vast amount of logistics experience, including responding to the Niger food crisis last year. John has worked in a number of conflict zones such as Rwanda and Somalia, as well as responding to disasters such as Hurricane Katrina last year. He was recently based in Cyprus where he organised relief to Lebanon during the five-week conflict during the summer."We are responding to the floods in the northern part of Kenya in co-ordination with the Kenyan Red Cross and International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies," said John."It is a difficult situation where, having just suffered a very bad drought, Kenya is now experiencing the reverse with terrible flooding."David Stevens has worked for four years as an air operations logistician for the British Red Cross since the Bam earthquake in Iran. More recently he responded to the earthquakes in Java, Indonesia in May and last year in Pakistan. The Department for International Development has donated £800,000 to support the Red Cross relief response in Kenya.The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies aims to assist around 563,000 people over the next four months. It launched an appeal for £11 million (26.3 million Swiss Francs) to support the Kenya Red Cross' work.[ Any views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not of Reuters. ]
