A file photo of Ternava (L) with Premier Haradinaj (C)

By Hany Salah, IOL Correspondent

PRISTINA, January 8 (IslamOnline.net) – Kosovan Muslims have joined the world’s biggest ever relief campaign to help the survivors of the monster tidal waves that ravaged Asia last month before hitting the coastline of Africa.

The Islamic Sheikdom in Pristina has decided to allocate 10 percent of January salaries of imams and employees to the grief-stricken Asians.

Naim Ternava, the Sheikhdom head, also announced a nationwide fund-raising campaign as the top Muslim authority opened a bank account for the donations.

Imams have dedicated Friday sermons to the distress of the peoples in the devastated countries, urging Kosovans to donate and provide relief materials for the hardest-hit countries.

Some 147,000 people have been confirmed killed, thousands missing and millions displaced in several Asian countries in walls of tidal waves triggered by a 9.0 magnitude underwater earthquake – the world’s biggest in 40 years – which struck deep in the Indian Ocean off the west coast of Indonesia’s Sumatra Island.

Areas effectively cut off include eastern Sri Lanka, India's remote Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Indonesia's northern Aceh province, near the epicenter of the killer quake.

Leading Muslim organizations in North America and Britain have launched online donations and appeals to people worldwide to immediately send contributions, raising millions of US dollars and sterling pounds.

Muslims in the Gulf region have also donated generously. A telethon in Saudi Arabia raised so far 82 million dollars, drawing donations of cash, tents and blankets, even diamonds.

Official Contributions

On the government level, Kosovan Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj allocated 300,000 euros for the tsunami victims following a cabinet meeting on Wednesday, January 5.

Kosovan President Ibrahim Rugova also expressed his heartfelt condolences for the governments and peoples of the devastated countries in a televised speech.

In neighboring Albania, the government decided to dispatch 20 medics to the disaster areas and offered the Albanian Red Cross 500,000 dollars.

The government announced Wednesday as a day of national mourning with flags flying at half-mast.

Muslims make up a majority of 75 percent of Albania’s 3.2 million population.

World leaders gathered in the Indonesian capital last week and renewed pledges for long-term reconstruction of the tsunami-hit countries.

Nearly 4 billion dollars have been promised so far.

International relief agency Oxfam has expressed fears that aid generosity is only fleeting and would evaporate when the media frenzy fades away.