In order to spread out its humanitarian aid to victims of the recent earthquake that hit the south and southeast of Turkey and the northwest of Syria, Malaysia has deployed a special reconnaissance team to Syria to assess the level of humanitarian aid required by the nation
The deputy secretary-general for bilateral relations at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Norman Muhamad, will lead the 21-member team that will be conducting a survey on the area, according to foreign minister Zambry Abdul Kadir, who also stated that follow-up action will be taken after the report is made.
“We are aware of the difficulty in entering Syria before due to, among other things, the sanctions imposed on the country, and a few days ago, the restrictions were lifted to allow humanitarian aid to enter.
“Malaysia did not wait long and we continued to act and held discussions with Prime Minister
Anwar Ibrahim who immediately asked us to make preparations to send an advance team tonight,” Foreign minister Zambry Abdul Kadir told reporters at the send-off of the special team here yesterday.
Also present was the Chargé d’Affaires of the Syrian Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, Mohd Ghiath Ibrahim.
Zambry said the special team consisted of representatives from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the National Disaster Management Agency (Nadma), Malaysian Armed Forces (ATM), Royal Malaysia Police and the Ministry of Health as well as the Malaysian Red Crescent Society and MERCY Malaysia.
“This team’s expertise (also) consists of various agencies, the background (of team members) is in the field of medicine, security, search and rescue (SAR) experts and logistics.
“This is very important because we want to take proactive action to help Syria and the most important thing is that information should be conveyed immediately for us to take follow-up action so we don’t have to wait for them to return before sending (aid),” he said, adding that Malaysia is also planning to send an ATM team to establish a field hospital there.
Before entering Syria on foot, Zambry said the team would take a flight from here to Istanbul, Turkey, and then to Beirut, Lebanon.
“We pray for our team going there, hopefully with good intentions they will arrive there and perform their duties as best as possible in providing humanitarian aid,” he said.
Meanwhile, Mohd Ghiath said the Syrian people thanked the Malaysian government and its people for the humanitarian aid forthcoming.
“I would like to thank (Malaysia) for the assistance to Syria and the help you are going to send. Currently, we are facing a shortage of everything like medicine, fuel, and electricity and many people there are in trouble,” he said.
Anwar earlier said that the assistance that would be sent there consists of money and medical supplies, including hospital equipment to run a field hospital, in response to a question about Malaysia’s position regarding the sending of aid teams to Syria in Parliament yesterday.
On February 6, two powerful earthquakes struck the south and southeast of Turkey and the northwest of Syria, killing over 35,000 people and injuring tens of thousands more.
The first earthquake, measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale, occurred at 4:17am (01:17 GMT) in the Pazarcik district of Kahramanmaras province, and was followed by a magnitude 7.6 aftershock less than 12 hours later.
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