Islamic relief workers go from Greek refugee crisis to Flint water crisis

Islamic Relief USA photo

The Global Post has a fascinating story today about an Islamic relief agency that spent months assisting refugees in Greece but turned their attention to the water crisis in Flint, where they’re delivering bottled water at a rapid pace.

Workers from Islamic Relief USA , who were previously handing out bottles of water and other supplies to downtrodden Syrian refugees on the Greek island of Lesbos, are now doing the same in Flint. With the help of the suburban Flint Islamic Center, they have assembled a small army of local volunteers.

Some of the relief group organizers were once refugees, arriving in America from Iraq and Afghanistan. What Islamic Relief found in Flint was distressing – an American city badly battered by decades of economic decline, now brought to its knees by the lack of basic, safe drinking water.

No amount of Pure Michigan commercials or Rick Snyder trade missions overseas will erase those ugly images as this debacle only gains more and more national and international attention.

Here’s a bit of the bittersweet story written for the Post by Jeanne Carstensen:

“Over the last two weekends, Islamic Relief has distributed two semi-trucks full of water -- that’s one 24-bottle case each for 3,000 households. 

“… ‘It literally looks like a war zone out here,’ said (Abdullah Shawky, regional service director for Islamic Relief) as we passed through block after block of abandoned, burned and gutted houses. ‘There are certain blocks that are so run down they resemble pictures out of (bombed) Syrian neighborhoods.’

“We started talking about the Syrians on Lesbos again, where we met. We saw thousands of refugees forced to leave home and seek safety elsewhere. Now, in Flint, we were again seeing people (who) were seeking safety -- but inside their own homes.

"'The similarities are pretty striking,’” Abdullah said about the refugees and the people in Flint. “’If anything here, they resemble internally displaced peoples within their own country. How can this be happening in the United States?’”