UN health official: 50 tonnes of EU-funded medical supplies that were due to enter Syria from Turkey on December 31 have been delayed and won’t cross the border until next week (Photo by Yasin AKGUL / AFP) (Photo by YASIN AKGUL/AFP via Getty Images)
Some 50 tonnes of EU-funded medical supplies that were due to enter Syria from Turkey on December 31 have been delayed and won’t cross the border until next week, a UN health official told news agency AFP on Monday.
The supplies were flown into Istanbul from an EU stockpile in Dubai on Thursday with the aim of supporting Syria’s battered healthcare system following the ouster of Bashar al-Assad by rebels on December 8.
“Currently, the dates have been pushed (back) as the supplies are still undergoing customs clearance. We’re hopeful they will be sent sometime next week,” said Mrinalini Santhanam, a spokesperson from the World Health Organization’s Gaziantep office in southern Turkey.
After completing customs formalities, the EU supplies will be driven to Turkey’s southern Cilvegozu crossing — Baba al-Hawa in Arabic — which lies 50 kilometres (30 miles) west of Aleppo, Syria’s second city, she said.
The shipment includes 8,000 emergency surgical kits, anaesthetic supplies, IV fluids, sterilisation materials and medications to prevent disease outbreaks, with the EU saying it would be sent to support “healthcare systems in Idlib and northern Aleppo”.
“The supplies are mainly trauma and surgical kits that will enable doctors in Syria to deliver thousands of surgical operations and to care (for) injured patients,” WHO planning analyst Lorenzo Dal Monte told AFP when the shipment landed at Istanbul airport early Thursday.
The civil war, which broke out in 2011, had “devastated the country and the healthcare system. Almost half of the hospitals in Syria are not functional,” he said.
It was the first part of an EU humanitarian bridge announced by Brussels on December 13, with a second 46-tonne delivery to follow from Denmark.
