DUBAI // A local campaign aimed at alleviating the suffering of people in the Levant affected by Storm Huda received national and international praise on Saturday.
Save the Children (STC), an international non-government organisation, commended the initiative, Tarahuma, while the office of the Crown Prince of Dubai (CPD) declared its support by joining it.
“We welcome and greatly admire the UAE’s efforts,” said Roger Hearn, STC’s Middle East director. “The needs of more than three million Syrian refugees and even more inside Syria are tremendous and a lot more needs to be done with funding relief, resettling refugees in richer countries and ending the conflict diplomatically. Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Egypt and Iraq cannot be left alone to face this unprecedented crisis.”
Meanwhile, Saif Al Ketbi, CPD’s director general, declared its support to assist a million refugees from Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and other countries in the Levant.
“We are happy to be a part of the humanitarian initiative,” he said.
“The UAE always shows its social responsibility through various humanitarian initiatives helping needy people around the world.”
The UAE humanitarian air bridge began sending shipments of blankets, winter clothing and food supplies to help hundreds of thousands of refugees in Jordan and Lebanon, in addition to those affected in Gaza and other regions of Palestine, in cooperation with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
The Justice Ministry and all federal courts and prosecution departments across the UAE are also raising donations for the campaign.
Sultan bin Saeed Al Badi, the Minister of Justice, said the ministry had placed boxes at its headquarters in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, as well as its judicial departments, to receive cash donations.
The Emirates Red Crescent distributed winter aid, including food supplies, to 75 Syrian refugee families in the Jordanian city of Mafraq on Friday while the Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan Foundation delivered emergency relief assistance to more than 500 Syrian refugee families – more than 3,000 refugees – in Danniyeh and Bekaa Safreen in north Lebanon to help them survive the winter. The UAE Red Crescent office in Gaza has begun work on the campaign.
Donations for the UAE’s Show Compassion campaign, which is raising funds for those affected by Storm Huda, on Saturday reached Dh163 million on the campaign’s fourth day.
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