Today's Date:

Pakistan earthquake - Announcement of a French contribution - Letter from Philippe Douste-Blazy, Minister of Foreign Affairs, to Jakob Kellenberger, President of the International Committee of the Red Cross

Paris, November 5, 2005

In the wake of the terrible earthquake which struck Pakistan and India on 8 October, killing tens of thousands of people, I want to inform you personally, following France’s announcement at the Pakistan donors’ conference in Geneva, of a €2 million contribution to the work of the International Committee of the Red Cross.

I am pleased that this contribution will benefit the thousands of children seriously injured in the earthquake who now need orthopaedic prostheses, which the ICRC Director General, Mr Gnaedinger, has proposed providing. Indeed, the Committee has experience and expertise here, which is invaluable for a people suffering major trauma. Moreover, all the relief operations in Pakistan highlight your remarkable interactivity with the Pakistani Red Crescent and non-governmental organizations.

I wish to stress the excellence of the Committee’s work in crisis areas to save and protect lives. The dialogue this ministry and the French authorities are maintaining with your representative in Paris and the ICRC regional delegates is exemplary.

I hope I may have a meeting with you soon, perhaps in Paris.

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