Nicaraguan organizations in South Florida will collect clothing and blankets to be sent to thousands of Nicaraguan refugees in Costa Rica.
© UNHCR/Roberto Carlos Sanchez
The non-profit organization “Miami Managua Lions Club” will receive donations of coats, clothing of all ages and sizes, shoes, quilts, towels, sheets, sanitary pads and pampers for adults and children. Medicines, food and water will not be accepted.
The collection will take place between Thursday August 23 and Sunday 26, at 125 SW 107th Ave., Miami, from 9:00 a.m. until 7:00 p.m.
The Miami effort is a joint one with the Club de Leones de Cartago, in Costa Rica.
“We are calling on the Nicaraguan community in South Florida to stand in solidarity with the exile community in Costa Rica,” said César Lacayo, coordinator of the humanitarian aid project Operation Costa Rica.
In early August, the U.N. refugee agency, UNHCR, spoke out about the humanitarian crisis that could be brewing along Nicaragua’s border with Costa Rica. There are already more than 23,000 Nicaraguans who have requested asylum in the neighboring country since the protests against Daniel Ortega’s government broke out in April.
The Costa Rican government has asked the international community for its support to face what it considers could become the next humanitarian crisis in Central America.
The containers with donations will arrive in Costa Rica during the second or third week of September, Lacayo said. On the day that the aid arrives, a cultural event with live music will also be held and 1,000 plates of hot food will be distributed to the Nicaraguan refugees, he said.
Source: CB24; Elnuevoherald
