Dubai, United Arab Emirates–The United Arab Emirates on Monday pledged humanitarian assistance worth around $13.6 million to Syria following an earthquake in Turkey that killed at least 1,000 people in the war-torn country, state media reported.
The 7.8 magnitude quake struck near the Turkish city of Gaziantep before dawn on Monday, killing more than 1,651 people in Turkey and another 1,000 in neighbouring Syria.
Emirati Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum “directed urgent humanitarian aid to those affected in Syria”, the official news agency WAM said.
The assistance is valued at 50 million dirhams, it added.
Countries around the world have mobilised rapidly to send aid and rescue workers to affected areas.
The UAE has dispatched a first plane to Adana Airport in southern Turkey “carrying search and rescue teams, crews, and medical equipment”, WAM said.
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The UAE said it was planning to establish a field hospital in Turkey and will also send search and rescue teams to Syria, along with urgent relief supplies and emergency aid, the news agency added.
Earlier on Monday, Emirati President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan offered his condolences to his Syrian and Turkish counterparts in two separate phone calls, according to WAM.
He “emphasised the UAE’s support for Syria and Turkiye and offered to provide any assistance in their efforts to mitigate the impact of the earthquake”, it said.
The UAE reopened its embassy in the Syrian capital in December 2018, suggesting an effort to bring Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime back into the Arab fold after years of boycott.
Last March, Assad made a visit to the UAE — his first to an Arab state in more than a decade of brutal civil war.