Aiding earthquake victims

In response to the catastrophic earthquake Saturday in Pakistan,

Burbank-based Islamic Relief USA teamed up with another charity to

send $1.6 million worth of medical emergency kits to the affected

areas Tuesday.

Islamic Relief, which has 10 established clinics and three offices

in Pakistan, teamed with Americares, a disaster-relief agency founded

in 1983, to ship World Health Organization-approved emergency medical

kits out of Americares’ Amsterdam facility.

Islamic relief hopes to send a total of $4 million in relief items

to Pakistan in the coming months, spokesman Arif Shaikh said. “We’ve

already started working,” Shaikh said. “We already distributed aid to

the victims and we have a $10 million appeal for funds to donate all

over the world and $4 million has been allocated for projects in

Pakistan.”

Islamic Relief’s Burbank headquarters has a staff of about 25

people.

“We’ve been asking for phone donations since Saturday,” Shaikh

said. “We also have collections set up in mosques.”

Once enough aid is collected, the organization will send

volunteers to Pakistan, which is estimated to have 20,000 to 30,000

dead and many injured and homeless.