UN has provided aid to two million people in Turkey after quakes, says spokesperson

Photo: AA/File

Click to read the article in Turkish (1) (2)

The United Nations (UN) has reached two million people in Turkey with water, sanitation and hygiene services since the massive earthquakes on February 6, an official has said.

"As needs for shelter, water, health, sanitation, and hygiene services are still very high, we continue to support the efforts led by the Government to help millions of people," Stéphane Dujarric, the spokesperson for the UN secretary-general, said yesterday (April 5) at a press conference in New York.

The aid includes one million liters of drinking water, 1.7 million liters of water to be used for sanitation, and about 318,000 hygiene kits, according to the spokesperson.

"We and along with our partners have also reached 135,000 people with health services and supplied 16 mobile clinics. Since the earthquakes, 42 emergency medical teams deployed in the region have carried out more than 71,000 consultations. Nine teams remain currently on the ground.

"And as we keep stressing, we urgently need more funding for the humanitarian response aimed at helping more than 5 million people. Our appeal is just 28 percent funded."

Sheltering problems

Separately, the Turkish Medical Association (TTB) said that six million people have been affected by the earthquakes in terms of sheltering.

Two million people currently stay in temporary residential areas, more than three million have migrated to regions outside of the earthquake zone and about 800,000 have migrated to rural areas in the earthquake zone, according to a TTB report released yesterday.

On February 6, two earthquakes with a magnitude of 7.7 and 7.6 struck the southern city of Maraş.

The quakes affected 11 cities in Turkey's south and southeast, as well as Syria's northern parts, where over 5,000 people were killed.

Turkey's official death toll from the quakes stands at over 50,000, with 227,000 buildings destroyed or severely damaged, according to government figures. (AEK/AS/VK)