Turkey delivers medical aid to UK to help fight virus

Turkey’s medical aid packages are being prepared for a military cargo plane, that will deliver them to United Kingdom to support the fight against coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic in Etimesgut Air Base in Ankara, Turkey on April 10, 2020 [Hakan Nural / Anadolu Agency]

A Turkish military cargo plane carrying medical supplies for use against the coronavirus pandemic departed on Friday for the UK.

“At the direction of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkish Armed Forces aircraft that will transport to United Kingdom the medical aid supplies prepared by Turkey’s Health Ministry to be used in the fight against COVID-19 has departed Etimesgut/Ankara,” the Turkish Defense Ministry said on Twitter.

The medical aid supplies also carried on a message for the people of the UK, saying:

After hopelessness, there is so much hope and after darkness, there is the much brighter sun.
Rumi.

The aid package carried to the UK by Turkey includes protective masks and overalls.

On Wednesday, UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab thanked Turkey in a phone conversation with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu for sending medical supplies to help the country deal with the coronavirus pandemic, according to diplomatic sources.

Raab said the move is an “indication of strong friendship between the two countries.”

Read: Turkey sends 2nd batch of medical supplies to UK

Coronavirus is affecting the whole world, will it unite us? – Cartoon [Sabaaneh/MiddleEastMonitor]

Turkey also sent medical aid to five Balkan countries including Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Kosovo on Wednesday, as well as to Italy and Spain – the countries in Europe worst-hit by the virus – last week.

After originating in Wuhan, China last December, COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, has spread to at least 185 countries and regions across the world. The pandemic has killed nearly 96,000 people and infected over 1.6 million, while more than 355,500 people have recovered from the disease, according to figures compiled by the US’ Johns Hopkins University.

Unless otherwise stated in the article above, this work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. If the image(s) bear our credit, this license also applies to them. What does that mean? For other permissions, please contact us.