site.btaBulgarian Red Cross Campaign for Clothes and Food Donations Focuses Mainly on Syria

A campaign of the Bulgarian Red Cross for donations of new clothes and food will be focused mainly to Syria now, Red Cross General Director Prof. Dr. Krasimir Gigov said here on Friday. He was speaking during the Annual Reporting Meeting of the regional organization of the Red Cross in this Black Sea city. He specified that a lot of donations have already been sent to Turkiye.

"Financial aid is also sent to Turkiye because our neighbor is a big country, has preserved its production capacity and when it has financial support, it can produce what it needs", Gigov explained.

Currently, family tents are needed for temporary accommodation in the affected regions, he added.

For Syria, airlift will mainly be used for supplies, as well as the two corridors that are open through Turkiye so that the two areas affected by the quake in Syria can be supported in a timely manner.

"Some of the funds raised here have been sent to the International Federation of the Red Cross, which has greater capacity to assist both Turkiye and Syria", Gigov said. According to him, more than BGN 3.5 million in financial donations have been raised so far. The said amount includes the receipts from a campaign for donations through SMS messages. The campaign has generated a total of 484,856 text messages to the three mobile operators as of February 21. 

He commented that Bulgaria has demonstrated high level of organization as it backed the efforts of Turkiye and Syria to deal with the devastation. Bulgaria was the first country to respond, the General Director said. 

He also commented that Bulgaria still doesn't have a law on volunteering and expressed hope that such legislation will be adopted soon to make it easier for volunteers to join various initiatives and to train them.