The South African Red Cross Society on Monday handed a R4-million cheque to the government’s interministerial committee coordinating the country’s relief efforts after the December 26 Indian Ocean tsunami.
The secretary of the society, Lesley Mondo, said the International Federation of Red Cross Societies (IFRC) will be asked to distribute the money to African countries hit by the tsunami.
”We will request that the IFRC dedicate the second transfer towards Red Cross work in Africa, wherein it has been estimated that 150 people died in Somalia and 54 000 were affected”, Mondo said.
The chairperson of the interministerial committee, Minister of Provincial and Local Government Sydney Mufamadi, said the search for South Africans missing in the affected countries will continue.
He said Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang will attend a work section in Geneva, Switzerland, on Tuesday on relief efforts in Asia.
The work section has been organised by the United Nations.
Ten South Africans have been confirmed dead, all in Thailand, and 269 are still unaccounted for, the Department of Foreign Affairs said in Pretoria on Monday.
The figure dropped from more than 300 at the weekend as people who had been in the area at the time of the disaster alerted the department that they are unharmed.
The number of people missing, presumed dead, remains at five, a spokesperson at the department’s operations centre said.
A sixth turned out to be alive but injured when he phoned his brother on Friday evening. — Sapa