| Kuwait contributes $250,000 for quake victims in Turkey |
| | Wed, 25 Jan 2012 |
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UNITED NATIONS: The State of Kuwait has contributed 250,000 American dollars to support UNICEF's humanitarian response to victims of the Van earthquake in Turkey, the fund said. "The support was announced by His Excellency Mansour Ayyad Al-Otaibi, Permanent Representative of Kuwait to the United Nations," said the press release, issued late on Tuesday. On October 23, 2011, an earthquake measuring 7.2 on the Richter scale hit the province of Van in eastern Turkey. Some 604 people were killed and over 4, 000 injured as dozens of buildings, including multi-story apartment blocks and schoolteachers' lodgings, collapsed or were seriously damaged. Due to continuing seismic activity and the assumption that most buildings have been damaged and weakened, much of the population in the affected areas, resided by 600,000 people, almost half of them children, were effectively left homeless. Normal life has not resumed as tens of thousands of people have left the region. Of these, about 35,000 are accommodated in state guest houses and other public buildings in other provinces. Most survivors remain in the region, living in tents, tent cities or in some cases container homes, in harsh winter conditions, pending other arrangements. UNICEF's response to this emergency has been prioritizing interventions in the areas of education and child protection, concentrating its efforts in helping schoolchildren and children up to five years of age to regain a sense of normalcy in the aftermath of the emergency. UNICEF said it is ensuring that psychosocial support is provided to all children affected by the emergency, including those who have lost family members and friends, and is training social workers to provide psychosocial support on a "tent-to-tent" basis. This amount is part of Kuwait's generous contributions to various UN agencies to help affected people around the world.
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