With the death toll at 120,000 and increasing by the hour, the number of injured at half a million, the most pressing issue now is to provide help to survivors to Sunday’s devastating tsunami. Official sources today warned that between 3 million and 5 million people in Southeast Asia are without basic services. These vulnerable people is unable to access the basic requirements needed to stay alive – clean water, adequate shelter, food, sanitation and healthcare.

The Emergency Corps of the Order of Malta (ECOM) – the Order’s international disaster relief network – is currently focusing on relief measures for India and Thailand. In India, help started immediately, on Sunday, 26 December. In Thailand, a team arrived in the region of Phuket on 28th December and began first relief operations with the distribution of food and non-food items.

‘During the last four months the security situation in the crisis area has become even worse,’ says Birke Herzbruch, emergency coordinator of the Order of Malta German Emergency Corps, recently returned to Germany from Darfur. ‘Attacks on refugees, looting and banditry, clashes between the Sudanese Liberation Army and militia/government are causing death and injury, and among the civilian population too.’

The relief programmes are running under very tight security. ‘In the rural areas in the south of El Fasher, the Order of Malta is supporting primary health care facilities and maternity wards. We reach about 45,000 persons in urgent need. And the supply of medicines and consumables is even more important now as the cold season has started.’

A humanitarian relief operation organised by the Emergency Corps of the Order of Malta (ECOM), is underway in the countries hit by the disastrous Asian earthquake. ECOM is currently assessing the situation and priority needs in order to estimate the means immediately required, focusing on relief measures for India and Thailand, countries where ECOM has a long-standing commitment and employs permanent local staff. In India, via our local partner in the Diocese of Marthandam, help has been ongoing since the day the tsunami struck. 10 villages have been destroyed in the region, leaving about a thousand dead. ECOM is distributing food, clothing and medicines to more than 10,000 people, and, together with the Catholic Health Association, is providing medical aid for those in need.

Car drivers using the new expressway between Shkoder and Lezha in northern Albania will be surprised at the new variant on the well-known numerous street controls. Police signal drivers to stop; but then a Malteser volunteer presents a questionnaire survey on “Safety and Traffic”.
Volunteers of the Order of Malta Albanian Malteser Relief Service “Malteser Ndihmon ne Shqiperi” well as members of the Albanian Malteser youth in cooperation with the Albanian police with support of Caritas Switzerland, are carrying out the survey, covering vehicle roadworthiness, the safe transport of children, use of seat belt which is not yet really popular in Albania, how to react to pedestrians, horses and carts as road-users.

In November, the Order of Malta German Emergency Corps (Malteser) carried out stage two of its polio vaccination campaign in the north of Darfur, Sudan. Ralf Pahlmann, Malteser emergency expert and coordinator of this campaign, is convinced that the Darfur conflict with all the border crossings and failed vaccination campaigns is a main cause for the return of this disease.

I wish all members of the Order, the volunteers and our benefactors a very happy Christmas and peaceful New Year in 2005.

Last year, we made our usual three pilgrimages to Lourdes, Assisi and Loreto, and in addition, in March, about 30 of us went to Cetinje in Montenegro, to venerate the original icon of Our Lady of Philermos, which is in the National Museum, and the relics of the right hand of St. John and a fragment of the True Cross, which are kept in an Orthodox Monastery, a short distance away.

On 8 December, the Grand Master of the Order of Malta, Fra’ Andrew Bertie, visited Piazza di Spagna in Rome for the customary floral tribute to the Immaculate Conception, also commemorating the 150 years since the proclamation of this Marian dogma.

The digital version of the Activity Report of the Order of Malta is now available online. Please note that the publication in PDF format can be downloaded from the Activity Reports section of this site. The Report is available in six languages: English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish.

The Activity Report offers an up-to-date description of the works of the Order, its current activities, organisation and historical context.

On 16 November the Grand Master of the Order of Malta, Fra’ Andrew Bertie, received His Eminence Cardinal Edward Cassidy, former President of the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity

On 5 November the Grand Master of the Order of Malta, Fra’ Andrew Bertie, received H.E. Msgr. Giovanni Lajolo, the Holy See’s Secretary for Relations with States.