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First Posted on Inside Mindanao (www.insidemindanao.com) on December 21, 2008
EU ambassadors visit evacuation camps in Mindanao
By Baikong Mamid
COTABATO CITY—Ambassadors from the European Union (EU) visited last week evacuation camps in Mindanao to see for themselves how the European Commission is helping the women, men, children affected by the armed conflict.
The EU ambassadors also visited Mindanao to see for themselves if the assistance from the European Commission has reached the civilians.
EU is composed of 27 member states. The European Commission is the executive branch of EU and is responsible for proposing legislation, implementing decisions, upholding the Union's treaties, and the general day–to–day running of the Union.
In a statement, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front said that the tour conducted by the EU ambassadors is the "clearest sign yet that they are directly concerned about the plight of civilians in this conflict and the need for immediate political settlement."
The EU ambassadors that joined the tour in Mindanao were Ambassadors Heikki Hannikainen (Finland), Rubens Fedele (Italy), Luis Arias (Spain), Valeriu Gheorghe (Romania), Peter Beckingham (United Kingdom), Christian Ludwig Weber–Lortsch (Germany), and Alistair MacDonald (European Commission). French chargé d'affaires Didier Ortolland, represented the EU presidency. Officials from embassies of Czech, Greece, Sweden, Austrian, The Netherlands also took part in the tour. They were also joined by World Food Program led by their Country Director Stephen Anderson.
EU ambassadors met local government unit officials, civil society organizations, non–government organizations involved in the progress of peace and development in Mindanao.
EU ambassadors also visited evacuation centers in Maguindanao. The province of Maguindanao is one of the provinces that received assistance from the European Commission.
The European Commission has provided some 33 million Euro in assistance to the humanitarian needs and long–term rehabilitation of displaced civilians affected by the armed conflict in Mindanao for the last 10 years.
Assistance from the European Commission includes the agreement in October of this year that European Commission will provide a sum of seven million Euro. This amount is an agreement to help the civilians affected by the armed conflict in Mindanao. However, the amount does not include contributions from the individual EU member states.
The assistance from the European Commission covers shelter, food, medicines, non–food items (i.e. blankets, toothpaste, slippers, soap, others), safe drinking water and latrines, health care, psychosocial support, food security and livelihood assistance, protection, capacity building such as trainings of evacuation management and hygiene promotion.
The team of ambassadors has seen that the conditions of the civilians in the evacuation camps are improving. However, they hope that civilians could return home safe.
World Food Program distributed rice to the evacuees.
END
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