BY JOHN HOUANIHAU
THE Solomon Islands Red Cross members and volunteers have already scaled up emergency support after hundreds of people in Honiara need immediate humanitarian assistance and access to health services.
Solomon Islands Red Cross, Secretary-General, Clement Manuri told Sunday Isles that they have supported around 130 people during the recent social uprising in Honiara.
“On the first day, we manage to evacuate around 29 people to safe places.
“We also seek additional help from others who owned vehicles to escort victims to safer places.
“At that time we drove out on the street through Chinatown together with the help from locals and call out to people that get trapped inside burn houses if they could come out and also we try to identify the movement of people around the buildings,” the Secretary-General said.
With a nationwide network, Solomon Islands Red Cross Society is the country’s largest humanitarian organisation delivering humanitarian assistance across the country.
Clement said that they transport the victims to where they had identified as safe due to lacking evacuation centers that are been set aside for displaced people compared to the 2006 riot where they evacuate people to Rove police Club.
“Now we have talks with the leaders from the Solomon Islands Chinese Association and other Associations in Honiara to carry out registration.
“We want to register to find out who are business owners, how many owned the buildings because some of them do rent the buildings to operate their businesses and reside in the building.”
He revealed that these people are the ones that are most vulnerable because they have lost their homes and businesses. “The next step is an assessment to give us what are the immediate needs.
