RED CROSS ANNOUNCES FUND TO ASSIST VICTIMS OF TERRORIST ATTACKS ABROAD

The British Red Cross has announced a charitable fund to assist UK residents who are the victims of terrorist attacks overseas. The Red Cross has established the fund at the request of the Government, which has donated £1m to it.

The British Red Cross Relief Fund for UK Victims of Terrorism Abroad will provide financial assistance to people who have been seriously injured or bereaved. The fund will provide immediate payments to help people as they seek to recover from the incident.

Charitable grants of up to £15,000 will be available to help people deal with the financial difficulties they may experience. An immediate payment of £3,000 will be made to people who have been bereaved or seriously injured. A further payment of £12,000 will be made available to those who have been bereaved, and those people who have to remain in hospital for five days, or need continued outpatient appointments. The grants are not compensation for what victims have suffered.

Margaret Lally, director of UK service development at the British Red Cross, said: “These charitable grants are to help alleviate the sudden and unforeseen expenses people may incur, such as hospital bills, or additional travel and accommodation costs. By making grants immediately available we hope to ease the burden at an incredibly stressful time.”

The British Red Cross is an officially recognised auxiliary to the UK government in the humanitarian field. Over the last two years the Red Cross and the Department for Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) have been working closely on the establishment of the fund, and to improve the support that is given to Britons who are affected by emergencies overseas, including terrorist incidents. As part of this, Red Cross support workers now travel as part of the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) Rapid Deployment Teams to provide practical help and emotional support.

In this role the Red Cross helped UK residents affected by the bomb explosions in Turkey and in Dahab, Egypt in April last year. In 2006, support workers also provided assistance during the evacuation of Britons from Lebanon in July and after a coach crash in Saudi Arabia in December.

In March 2006, DCMS announced that it would support the creation of a fund to provide help to Britons directly affected by terrorist attacks abroad. Since then, the Red Cross has made charitable grants on behalf of DCMS available under an interim arrangement. The creation of the fund now formalises these arrangements.

Money from the new fund will also be made available to the UK victims of terrorist attacks overseas that took place between the 1 January 2002 and March 2006. These payments will be made to people who have not received any other form of financial assistance and who known to be still experiencing financial difficulties.

For more information, take a look at the Red Cross website