RCA to build homes for quake victims

The UAE Red Crescent Authority will build a Dh12m Sheikh Khalifa city in Pakistan for the victims of earthquakes in Blakot.

The UAE Red Crescent Authority (RCA) will build a Dh12 million Sheikh Khalifa city in Pakistan for the victims of earthquakes in Blakot. Khamis Al Suweidi, the head of the RCA team, and Ghari Aziz Al Rahman, the chairman of the Earthquake Reconstruction and Development Authority (ERDA), signed an agreement today in the presence of the UAE ambassador to Pakistan Ali Sultan Al Awani and Tariq Zaman, the director general of Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (ERRA) according to WAM. Mr Zaman expressed the gratitude of the government and people of Pakistan to the UAE for its initiative to build the 211 housing unit city. Ordered by the RCA chairman Sheikh Hamdan bin Zayed the city will have modern health, education and services facilities. ''The generous initiative is not alien to the UAE which stands beside Pakistan. It will boost Pakistan's efforts to reconstruct quake-hit regions and will make a qualitative urban development breakthrough," he added. ''The government of Pakistan will offer all necessary assistance and facilities to allow the project come into life,'' he stressed. Mr al Suweidi said the RCA was carrying out a series of humanitarian, relief and development programmes in Pakistan worth Dh74 million. ''The RCA is currently running a relief programme in support of internally displaced persons (IDPs) on Swat Valley and its surrounding areas,''he added. ''The UAE will spare no efforts to assist those affected population at difficult times,''he emphasised. WAM