Assistance for the affected population by the disastrous earthquake in Türkiye and Syria

The disastrous earthquake that struck the Republic of Türkiye and the Syrian Arab Republic on February 6, 2023 resulted with over 9,500 lost lives and over 37,000 injured people and over 6,200 destroyed residential buildings. Unfortunately, these scary numbers are constantly rising and are not final.

Expressing our solidarity with the citizens of Türkiye and Syria, the Red Cross of RNM immediately contacted the Turkish Red Crescent and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent in order to explore possibilities for providing support to our two close partner organizations with which we have been cooperating for many years.

The Red Cross of RNM, in coordination with the responsible stakeholders in the Republic of North Macedonia, immediately took initial steps to provide humanitarian support for the population affected by the earthquake by launching an appeal for mobilizing financial support for the affected population. To our great satisfaction, we can certainly say that the citizens of the Republic of North Macedonia are showing their solidarity in action this time as well. As of February 7, 2023, a total of 3,363,800 denars were raised through the donor telephone lines, and a total of 6,467,192 denars were deposited on the Solidarity Fund of the Red Cross of RNM. A total of 9,830,992 denars were raised. Also, the Red Cross of RNM provided 1,000 family food parcels, 1,500 hygiene parcels and 4,000 blankets from its stock reserves.

The Red Cross of the Republic of North Macedonia continues to monitor the situation in Türkiye and Syria. In cooperation with our partners from the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and the responsible institutions in our country, the Red Cross will continue to coordinate and mobilize the humanitarian efforts of citizens, companies and other institutions in order to provide solidarity support for the population affected by the earthquake in Türkiye and Syria.

In coordination with the Embassy of the Republic of Türkiye in RNM, it has been agreed that in the coming period the activities will be aimed at collecting humanitarian aid in form of financial means. We support efforts and activities related to donating material aid from firms and companies. It would be nice if smaller donations and citizens’ initiatives could be in form of raising funds, not in material goods, because customs restrictions do not allow the delivery of such humanitarian aid. In order to be more efficient and direct and to ensure rapid response, we prefer to coordinate all activities together and to guide them for purpose of motivating the citizens and the population to donate money. The raised funds at the end of the campaign will be transferred to the Turkish Red Crescent and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, who would know how to cover the humanitarian needs of their citizens in the best way.

Thank you for your cooperation so far and we invite you for further cooperation and proactivity.