The International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC) on Saturday asked for €202 million to help fund relief operations for victims of Monday’s earthquakes in Turkey and Syria.
In a statement, the IFRC emphasizes that it participates in the operations by providing medical support and transporting injured people to hospitals, for which it has about 8,000 people, including employees and volunteers.
According to the IFRC, EUR 121 million is earmarked for financing work in Turkey and the remaining EUR 81 million in Syria.
“The level of pain and suffering is immense and the need for support is equally immense. […] We call on the international community to help the Syrian and Turkish people not only in the coming days, but also in the months and years it will take them to recover,” said IFRC Secretary General Jagan Chapagin.
The most urgent needs, he told the IFRC, are tents, sanitation, psychological care, food and drinking water.
More than 24,000 people have died as a result of the earthquakes that hit southern Turkey and northwestern Syria on Monday, according to the latest official data released today.
According to Afad, a Turkish aid agency, 20,665 bodies have been recovered from the rubble in Turkey so far and 3,553 bodies have been counted in Syria, according to an official balance sheet.
In Syria, earthquakes, with the epicenter in Turkey, have so far resulted in the deaths of a total of 3,553 people and the injuries of more than 5,276 in need of urgent attention.
These figures bring the total number of deaths in the two countries to 24,218 from a magnitude 7.8 earthquake, which was followed by several aftershocks, one of which measured 7.5.
Source: DN
