Minnesota Relief Workers Helping With Syrian Crisis
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- Some Minnesotans are helping people fleeing the crisis in Syria. One Minnesota Relief Worker from the American Refugee Committee will be flying to Jordan Tuesday afternoon to assist with the emergency efforts there.
Families have been staying in Jordan after being forced from their homes in Syria due to the ongoing civil war. It's hard to imagine what those families who have fled their homes are going through, but for people like Graham Eastmond, these relief workers will be helping first hand to try to help them take back control of their lives.
He will be the sixth person sent there from Minnesota this year. Families have been staying in Jordan after being forced from their homes in Syria due to the ongoing civil war.
Graham, a native of Mahtomedi, will flying out from the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport Tuesday with the other workers by the early afternoon hours. He'll be meeting with officials from the United Nations in Jordan to begin building refugee programs to help the more than 600,000 people who have been seeking refuge in the country.
"No vegetation, no shade, no water there. There's currently no electricity and all of this needs to be brought in. It's building a city," Graham said. "The task is enormous and the scale of this emergency and this crisis, I don't think people really fully understand it."
Altogether, more than four million men, women and children have been displaced from their homes in Syria from the crisis. About 7,500 Syrians have crossed the border from Syria into Jordan in the past 48 hours alone.
