Mohammed Dhaysane
Monday February 20, 2023
( Aytug Can Sencar - Anadolu Agency )
Somalia’s South West state donated $100,000 Sunday to the victims of the twin earthquakes in Türkiye, said a committee recently established for contributing to relief efforts.
“The president of Somalia's Southwest state, H.E Abdiaziz Hassan Mohamed Laftagareen, has donated One Hundred Thousand Dollars to the earthquake victims' relief in the Republic of Türkiye,” the Committee for the Relief of Türkiye, which was appointed by Somali Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre, said in a brief statement on Twitter.
Expressing their condolences to the victims of the earthquakes, officials of the South West state presidency in Baidoa, the administrative capital of the state, confirmed the relief contribution to Anadolu by phone.
The state is the first in Somalia to contribute to the relief campaign, which is in full swing in the country, but Mogadishu municipality donated $250,000 to the quake victims on Saturday.
Somalia’s members of parliament also unanimously voted Saturday to donate 20% of their February salaries to the victims.
The Somali business community announced earlier that it donated $3 million to the relief campaign.
On Friday, Prime Minister Barre announced that the Somali government had donated $1 million to the victims of the earthquakes.
At least 41,020 people have been killed by the two strong earthquakes that jolted southern Türkiye on Feb. 6, the country’s disaster management agency said Sunday.
The magnitude 7.7 and 7.6 quakes were centered in Kahramanmaras and struck 10 other provinces – Adana, Adiyaman, Diyarbakir, Hatay, Gaziantep, Malatya, Kilis, Osmaniye, Elazig, and Sanliurfa.
More than 13 million people have been affected by the devastating quakes.