Press action medeor

Six months after the devastating quakes, the health aid organization action medeor is taking stock. The “emergency pharmacy of the world”, as action medeor is also known, was on the ground with local helpers just one day after the disaster to provide survivors with the essentials. Six months later, the relief efforts are well advanced - but far from over.

Water, food, blankets, medicines: The first relief supplies that action medeor brought to the earthquake regions in cooperation with its local partners were there to ensure the bare survival of the people." Basically, that hasn't changed to this day,” Markus Bremers, press spokesman for action medeor, says. "Many families have lost everything and still need help to secure their livelihoods. It is therefore still about basic things. However, the aid is now more organized, planned and on a larger scale than in the first days after the disaster."

The figures presented by action medeor after six months prove this: Since February 2023, the aid organization and its local partners have distributed around 70,000 hot meals, as well as funding 4,000 blankets and more than 10,000 hygiene kits. Hundreds of families have been provided with sleeping bags, stoves, winter and baby clothes. In Islahiye, a town in the province of Gaziantep, a drop-in center for earthquake victims was set up, which 100 people visit every day to take advantage of the food distribution, medical treatment services, activities for children or sanitary facilities.

Since the first days after the quake, action medeor and its local partner organizations have also been providing mobile medical care for thousands of people. “Mobile health teams began their work just a few days after the quake,” Bremers explains. This helped to care for people in areas that were difficult to access, particularly in the first critical phase. “In individual cases, amputations were avoided or lives were saved because patients were quickly given initial treatment and taken to hospital,” Bremers explains. Over 13,000 people have been reached by the mobile health teams so far, “and these teams are still providing an important service to the health care of the earthquake survivors,” according to Bremers.

The humanitarian situation in the Syrian earthquake regions poses a particular challenge. "Many people who have fled the Syrian civil war live here. Some refugee camps in north-west Syria have now grown into real cities,” Bremers explains. They are trying to meet the most basic health needs of the people there. “This is done on the one hand by supplying medicines and on the other by working closely with local hospitals,” Bremers points out. With the support of action medeor, a hospital in the region around the north-western Syrian city of Azaz is now to set up a physiotherapy ward and offer psychological consultations. According to action medeor, these psychosocial services are becoming increasingly important. “The psychological consequences of the disaster are only now slowly coming to light,” Bremers says, who himself was on site a few days after the quake and spoke to those affected. After the initial shock, people are now falling into a hole and losing their courage to face life. We want to help them recognize their prospects in life again." To this end, action medeor has made a number of efforts over the last six months - including financial ones. So far, the “emergency pharmacy of the world” has provided a total of around 900,000 euros for earthquake relief. The same amount is to flow again by the end of 2023 to ensure further humanitarian, medical and psychological care for earthquake victims in Turkey and Syria.

This and other aid is financed by donations. If you would like to support the work of action medeor, you can donate online at www.medeor.de. There you can also leave your address for a donation receipt. You can also make a traditional bank transfer via IBAN DE78320500000000009993 at Sparkasse Krefeld, donation keyword: “Emergency aid worldwide”.

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