WATERTOWN — Samaritan’s Purse, an evangelical Christian organization that both provides physical aid and promotes the Gospel, has recently provided aid to the forcibly displaced Armenians from Artsakh in Armenia. Two flights of its DC-8 cargo plane brought emergency supplies from its base in Greensboro, NC.
The first delivery on October 7 brought more than 30 tons of relief, including food, blankets and solar lights, to Yerevan. Samaritan’s Purse set up its own Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) by working with local evangelical church partners to deliver this relief. According to its press release, it promised hot meals, and necessities such as personal hygiene kits, diapers, cleaning supplies, bed linens and blankets.
Moreover, Samaritan’s Purse medical teams began working in local hospitals to help burn victims from a gas station explosion near Stepanakert during the exodus from Artsakh. Two burn specialty teams provided surgical care to these victims, including wound care, skin grafts, and post-operative physical therapy, as well as prayer.
“The depth and extent of these [wounds from the explosion] are probably some of the worst I’ve seen in my 27 years of experience working in burn treatment. The amount of suffering here is beyond human comprehension,” said Joany McDougall, a nurse on Samaritan’s DART, in an October 11 article.
By October 11, Samaritan’s Purse had 28 people on the ground in Armenia, including the burn specialty teams.
A second flight left North Carolina on October 12 with 23 tons of emergency supplies.
