CAMPAIGN SEEKS SUPPLIES TO AID BOSNIAN WOMEN
By Bruce Campion-Smith

October 18, 1993 – (Toronto Star) A group of women has launched a campaign to collect essential toiletries and other supplies to send to war-torn Bosnia-Herzegovina.

"It's to let the women know we haven't forgotten about them," says Laurie Buchanan, co-ordinator of the campaign.

Called Woman to Woman, the goal of the project is to collect supplies like underwear, socks, toothpaste, toothbrushes, disinfectant, face clothes, sanitary napkins, laundry detergent and candles.

Though these are items many Canadians take for granted, they are in desperately short supply in the troubled regions, she said.

"Food is getting in but this is what women are desperate for," Buchanan says.

"This gives dignity to people."

The project is being organized by the Toronto-based Women's Multifaith Coalition. Its goal is to help women in the warring regions of the former Yugoslavia.
the group hopes to send a shipment before the end of October and the onset of winter. It is accepting supplies or donations. For details or to drop
off supplies, call 920-3726.

Meanwhile, urgently needed medical supplies collected by the year-old group Mercy International Canada have recently been shipped to Bosnia.

Michael Campbell, an Oakville resident and head of the organization, says bandages, medicines and medical equipment donated by Baxter Diagnostics in Mississauga and Kendall Canada in Peterborough were divided by weight to be sent by air or sea.

Bandages and sutures were flown on cargo space donated by Air Canada to Frankfurt, then by Croatian Airlines to be distributed to hospitals in all parts of Bosnia.

More than 33 tonnes of medicine, intravenous equipment and heavier supplies left Montreal by ship late last month, and are expected to arrive in
Croatia soon, he adds.

"Hospitals are in desperate need of these things," says Campbell.

Doctors must amputate without anesthetic, deliver babies without a stethoscope and perform an average of 45 emergency surgeries a day wearing the same pair of rubber gloves, says Campbell, who visited Bosnia in June.

A toddler he met in Zagreb had mastered only a few complete sentences, Campbell recalls. Among them: "My house was burned and my dog was shot."