Qatar emir donates $13.7m to Turkiye, Syria earthquake victims

The Emir of the State of Qatar Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani on Friday evening donated 50 million Qatari riyals ($13.7 million) as part of the Qatari Awn wa Sanad (aid and support) campaign for the relief of those affected by the earthquakes in Syria and Turkiye, which left tens of thousands of victims

February 12, 2023 - 06:59

Qatar emir donates $13.7m to Turkiye, Syria earthquake victims

Author The Presidential Press and Information Office, Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kim_Jong-un_and_Vladimir_Putin_(2019-04-25)_02.jpg. Wikimedia Commons, under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0.

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The Qatari Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs donated ten million riyals ($2.7 million) to the campaign, according to Sheikh Dr Khaled Bin Mohammed Bin Ghanem Al-Thani, director-general of the General Directorate of Endowments at the Ministry of Endowments and Islamic Affairs, during a telephone interview with Qatar TV.

The campaign's donations reached more than 70 million Qatari riyals ($19.2 million) within less than two hours after its launch.

Earlier, Qatar TV launched an urgent relief campaign under the title Awn wa Sanad to collect donations supporting those affected by the devastating earthquake.

On its Twitter account, Qatar TV tweeted a video calling on everyone to donate to the campaign, which comes in cooperation between the Qatar Media Corporation, Qatar TV, the Regulatory Authority for Charitable Activities, the Qatar Red Crescent and Qatar Charity.

READ: Messi shirt up for auction to raise funds for Turkiye earthquake victims

At dawn on Monday, a 7.7-magnitude earthquake struck southern Turkiye and northern Syria, followed by another hours later with a magnitude of 7.6 and hundreds of violent aftershocks, which left huge losses of lives and property in both countries.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared a state of emergency for a period of three months in ten states affected by the earthquake, namely Adana, Adiyaman, Diyarbakir, Gaziantep, Hatay, Kahramanmaraş, Kilis, Malatya, Osmaniye and Sanliurfa, while the governorates of Aleppo, Idlib, Latakia and Hama were declared as "disaster zones".

Qatar provided initial aid in the form of an air bridge equipped with relief and healthcare supplies and a rescue team, as well as 10,000 mobile homes.

The Qatar Red Crescent also launched a campaign to raise $10 million and provided $1 million in urgent relief. A similar campaign was launched by Qatar Charity called "Help the earthquake victims".

Source: Middle East Monitor under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0