DOHA: Qatar Red Crescent (QRC) has launched an initiative to trace, for Nepalese expatriates here, their relatives who are missing after last Saturday’s earthquake in the Himalayan nation.
The organisation has launched two portals — one for Nepalese expatriates to key in details of their missing relatives, the other for the missing persons to send their messages, if they are alive.
The QRC gave the address of the first portal, to register the details of the missing, as http://familylinks.icrc.org/nepal-earthquake/en/Pages/register-missing.aspx
The missing persons, if they are alive, can respond on the following portal: http://familylnks.icrc.org/nepal-earthquake/en/Pages/Home.aspx
Nepalese can also visit the office of QRC in the Old Ghanem area of Doha and file a request to contact their missing relatives on an application form.
The QRC office works Sunday to Thursday from 10am to 1pm and from 4pm to 7pm.
Fatima Al Kuwari, a QRC volunteer heading the office, said requests for connecting with missing persons in Nepal were being treated as highly confidential.
She said that enquiries for missing persons were being forwarded to Nepal through the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. She said arrangements were in place for the Nepalese here to talk to their relatives back home on phone or through audio-visual mediums.
Twenty-five trained volunteers are manning QRC’s office to register the missing persons’ details. Some 10 of the volunteers are Arabic-speaking while the remaining are from Europe and Asia (including Nepal, Pakistan and Indonesia). “We are receiving people on a daily basis who are requesting us to connect to missing persons in Nepal,” Al Kuwari said.
Meanwhile, QRC has launched a drive locally to collect QR12m ($3.3m) in donations for relief and rescue work in the quake-ravaged country. A QRC team reached Nepal with tonnes of medicine stocks and a mobile hospital within 48 hours of the disaster.
QRC Secretary-General Saleh bin Ali Al Mohannadi said QRC’s relief and rescue work will continue for three months in Nepal after which the second phase that of rebuilding and rehabilitation initiatives will begin. He said QR1m was sent to Nepal for instant relief work. THE PENINSULA
