Western nations and charities stepped up efforts Wednesday to get emergency aid to some 100,000 people displaced by the Georgia-Russia conflict, as the first UN supply convoy arrived in Tbilisi. US President George W. Bush said an American cargo plane was en route to Georgia bearing humanitarian supplies to help victims after days of fierce fighting with Russia.
"And in the days ahead we will use US aircraft as well as naval forces to deliver humanitarian and medical supplies," Bush promised. A plane chartered by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), unloaded 34 tonnes of tents, blankets and other emergency supplies at Tbilisi's airport late Wednesday morning - the first UN aid to arrive.
Another UN agency, the World Food Programme (WFP), said it had also sent 34 tonnes of supplies, this time high energy biscuits, on two cargo planes from Italy. Greece also sent a plane loaded with humanitarian supplies. Despite having sufficient stocks in Georgia to feed 16,000 people for 10 days, supplies are dwindling rapidly and a safe route to supply food stocks needs to be secured, the WFP said.
The UNCHR estimates some 100,000 people have been displaced since fighting between Russia and Georgia broke out last week in South Ossetia. In the Georgian city of Gori alone, the UNHCR was told up to 80 percent of residents - out of a population of 56,000 - had left, heading mainly for the capital Tbilisi.
"There's very little hard information that we can get directly, particularly in the conflict zone," Tom Vincent, country director in Georgia for British charity Save the Children, told CNN. Save the Children launched an appeal Tuesday for one million dollars (0.7 million euros), the day after a similar appeal from the International Committee of the Red Cross for eight million Swiss francs (4.9 million euros, 7.4 million dollars).