Tsunami aid 'went to the richest'
BBC Online
Six months after the Asian tsunami, a leading international charity says the poorest victims have benefited the least from the massive relief effort. A survey by Oxfam found that aid had tended to go to businesses and landowners, exacerbating the divide between rich and poor. The poor were likely to spend much longer in refugee camps where it is harder to find work or rebuild lives. Oxfam has called for aid to go to the poorest and most marginalised. They must not be left out of reconstruction efforts, the charity said. The tsunami in the Indian Ocean on 26 December killed at least 200,000 people in countries as far apart as Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka and Somalia. David Loyn, the BBC's developing world correspondent, says it is perhaps not surprising that the poorest suffered the most from the disaster itself.
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