site.btaBulgarians Used to Travel to Edirne for Shopping, Now They Go to Bring Food and Clothing for Quake Victims

Many Bulgarians used to travel to the border city of Edirne in Turkiye to do their shopping. Now they go to bring food and clothes for the victims of the earthquakes in southern Turkiye.

Earlier this week, the regional government in Edirne announced a campaign to raise aid for the quake victims.

The first to respond were people from neighbouring Bulgaria. Donations are being collected at the Mimar Sinan Sports Hall in the city, the Haberler website reported.

The donations contain mainly blankets, clothing, food, and sanitary products. They are collected and distributed by the district's Disaster and Emergency Management Department.

"A local saying goes that 'one neighbour needs another neighbour, even for the smallest things'. We are the closest neighbours, we have relatives on both sides of the border. That is why we experience every misfortune as our own. With the donations we have made, we want to show that the pain of the victims is our pain too, that we should help each other. I am sure that our neighbours from Turkiye would do the same in an identical situation," said Melahat from the southern Bulgarian town of Kardzhali. She arrived in Edirne Friday with her husband and 18-year-old son.   

The Edirne authorities said that the donations they have so far received from Bulgaria, thanks to a joint campaign by the Turkish Embassy in Sofia and the Movement for Rights and Freedoms, include 14,688 blankets, two electricity generators, 77 heaters, 119 tonnes of food and 51 tonnes of clothing.

The bank account that the Turkish Embassy in Sofia put up for raising donations has received EUR 440,000 from businesses, various organizations and citizens in Bulgaria. These will be transferred to the Disaster and Emergency Management Directorate.