Prague, Nov 2 (CTK) – The Czech government decided on Wednesday to earmark five million crowns in aid of five ill children from Aleppo, one of Syria’s most war-afflicted cities, within the MEDEVAC programme of humanitarian evacuations, its spokesman Martin Ayrer has tweeted.
“We will provide the aid jointly with the Interior Ministry. We have found money based on an agreement with the prime minister,” Foreign Minister Lubomir Zaoralek (Social Democrats, CSSD) told CTK.
In June, the Czech government approved humanitarian, development and reconstruction aid to Syria worth 195 million crowns until 2019.
The aid will be provided in support of education and the renewal of health, educational and social facilities.
In October, the Czech government sent six tonnes of medical materiel to Syria.
The MEDEVAC programme was launched in 1993. Apart from sending medical teams abroad, it secures the transfer of patients to the Czech Republic, the training of medical personnel and an improvement in health infrastructure in selected countries.
In the past, the programme helped patients from Bosnia-Herzegovina, Chechnya, Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Cambodia, Libya, Burma, Syria and Ukraine.
The battle of Aleppo flared up again in September, claiming hundreds of lives, according to human rights defenders. About 250,000 inhabitants are under siege.
The Syrian conflict has claimed more than 300,000 lives since its beginning in 2011.
The Czech Republic has provided humanitarian aid worth more than 100 million crowns to people in Syria and Syrian refugees abroad since the conflict broke out.
