Posted on 09/19/2002 3:50:22 PM PDT by Imal
Al-Haramain steps up activities despite US accusations
By Muhammad Al-Harbi, Arab News Staff
RIYADH, 19 September — Al-Haramain Charitable Foundation has intensified its humanitarian activities across the world despite US accusations that the organization has financed the activities of Osama Bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda network.
The Riyadh-based charity recently opened a large Islamic center in Bosnian capital Sarajevo.
"It’s our organization’s largest Islamic center in Europe," Hisham Al-Mashari, chairman of Al-Haramain’s committee for Europe, told Arab News.
The facility includes a cultural center, a dormitory for university students and a prayer hall for men in addition to administrative offices.
Al-Haramain established the Sarajevo Islamic center at a cost of SR2 million. Its annual expenditure is estimated at more than SR200,000.
Meanwhile, Muhammad Al-Tuwaijeri, head of the organization’s committee for Africa, told Arab News that it had sent a delegation to Kenya to provide emergency relief for the country’s 150,000 refugees.
He called upon international organizations to support 50,000 Somali refugees, whom the United Nations has shifted to the Kenyan border, to rehabilitate them in a European country.
"These refugees are facing difficult times. They don’t have food or shelter and need emergency assistance," he said.
Al-Haramain had carried out a major campaign to fight cholera in various parts of Somalia. About 90,000 Somalis have been hit by the epidemic. Of them, at least 3,500 have died.
The organization has taken a number of steps to prevent the spread of cholera in the African country by enhancing public health awareness, sinking wells to supply clean drinking water and offering health care services.
Following the plan.
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