The head of the Tunisian Red Crescent delegation to Aleppo, Siham Ben Ali, said in statements to “Sky News Arabia” that their intervention included aiding the injured in the Al-Masharqa area of Aleppo, where they worked for continuous hours, day and night, without interruption, and in cooperation with the Syrian and Algerian Red Crescents, to extract the victims and bodies from beneath. The debris of collapsed buildings, and described the situation in Aleppo as very serious and unfortunate, as they found dozens of victims under the rubble.
Ben Ali stressed that the survivors of the devastating earthquake are in need of humanitarian support, calling on the Tunisians to send in-kind aid, including medicines, food and blankets, for the benefit of the wounded in hospitals and the survivors in tents.
And the official of the Tunisian Red Crescent continued her talk about the mission in Syria, saying: “Our team has already received international training in methods of urgent intervention during crises and disasters, and we have worked hard to support rescue efforts in Aleppo, although the tragedy was great for the Syrians who lost their families, their homes were destroyed, and they lived for long hours.” From fear and terror, hundreds of them slept in the open under low temperatures.
In addition, the doctor specializing in resuscitation, Samir Abdel-Momen, wrote on his Facebook page that they “say farewell to Syria with much love and appreciation from the Syrian people for Tunisia, and that they were the first medical team from abroad to enter Aleppo after 12 years of siege.”
It is noteworthy that the Tunisian medical mission to support Syria following the devastating earthquake included health personnel, including doctors specializing in emergency medicine, orthopedics, psychiatry, paramedical personnel, specialists in medical resuscitation and anesthesia, civil defense personnel and a number of Red Crescent volunteers.
For their part, officials of the Tunisian Civil Defense team sent to Aleppo stated in press statements that they secured the recovery of approximately 30 bodies in different locations, and the search process in some locations took more than 40 hours due to the extent of the damage left by the earthquake.
The rescue team, which was tasked with searching for the missing earthquake victims under the rubble, included 20 members of the Civil Defense, equipped with advanced equipment, on their first mission outside Tunisia since they obtained, in June 2022, the international recognition certificate for responding to relief calls in cases of natural disasters.
It is worth noting that the Director-General of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, had praised, on the sidelines of his visit to inspect the earthquake-affected areas in the Syrian city of Aleppo, the efforts made by the Tunisian medical team to provide medical assistance to the victims of the violent earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria. A humanitarian appeal has been launched for $43 million to support response efforts in Syria and Turkey.
#Tunisian #Rescue #Mission #difficult #humanitarian #situation #widespread #destruction #recovery #operations #hours