The US will provide $85 million (about €79 million) in aid to Turkey and Syria in the aftermath of the devastating earthquake, the US Agency for International Development (USAID) said this Thursday.
The USAID statement emphasized that funding will be provided to partners on the ground “to provide urgently needed assistance to millions of people,” including food and medical assistance, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
The agency added that the aid should also help provide clean water and prevent the spread of disease.
The announcement follows a phone call this Thursday between US diplomatic chief Anthony Blinken and his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu to discuss the needs of this NATO member ally.
“We are proud to be joining the global aid campaign for Turkey – Turkey has sent aid personnel to many countries in the past,” a State Department spokesman told reporters.
The United States has already sent rescue teams to Turkey and provided equipment, generators, water treatment systems and helicopters to assist in relief operations, US officials said.
USAID said rescue teams have concentrated their efforts in the earthquake-hit city of Adiyaman, searching for survivors using dogs, cameras and listening devices.
Due to damage to roads and bridges, the Pentagon sent Black Hawk and Chinook helicopters to transfer cargo, USAID reports.
Aid in Syria is channeled through local partners, with the United States refusing to have any contact with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad due to his crackdown on a popular uprising against the regime, sparking a more than a decade-long civil war.
On Thursday, an ambulance convoy entered rebel-held areas in northwestern Syria for the first time since the crash.
Prior to the earthquake, almost all the necessary humanitarian assistance for more than 4 million people living in the breakaway areas in northwestern Syria was delivered from Turkey through the Bab al-Hawa checkpoint thanks to a cross-border mechanism established in 2014. The Council UN security and contested by Damascus and Moscow, a close ally of Bashar al-Assad.
“We call on the regime [de Bashar al-Assad] immediately allow aid to pass to all border posts and open access to [organizações] humanitarian aid to all Syrians in need without exception,” said State Department spokesman Ned Price.
More than 20,000 people have died in the massive earthquake that rocked southern Turkey and Syria on Monday, according to official figures released this Thursday evening.
So far, 17,134 bodies have been recovered from rubble in Turkey, according to AFAD, a Turkish relief organization, while 3,162 bodies have been counted in Syria, according to the official balance sheet.
These figures bring to 20,296 the total death toll in the two countries hit by an earthquake measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale, followed by several aftershocks of nearly equal intensity.
Author: Portuguese
Source: CM Jornal
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